


A Seismic Shift in Times

by orphan_account



Category: Glee
Genre: Harry Potter AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-08-02
Updated: 2011-09-16
Packaged: 2017-10-22 03:44:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 33,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/233378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Times are changing at Hogwarts and instead of having a rivalry with Gryffindor or prejudiced against non-Purebloods, Slytherin finds itself against any and all Hufflepuffs. Kurt Hummel doesn’t really care, but keeping with the status quo has its benefits (namely keeping Santana off his back). Then he’s forced to get tutoring from quintessential Hufflepuff Blaine Anderson and his entire world flips upside-down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is finished except for necessary editing. Expect a new chapter every few days, betas permitting.

## CHAPTER 1

 _Blame a change of mind  
A seismic shift in times  
They told us not to fight  
But we'll fight it til we die_

  
-”Stood Up” by A Fine Frenzy  



Kurt’s eyes slide to the clock hanging over a large pot of biting roses. There are still twenty minutes of Herbology to go before lunch but it feels more like an eternity. Professor Longbottom stands at the lectern at the front of the greenhouse going over the necessary repotting instructions for firecracker bulbs, but Kurt doesn’t hear a word he's saying. Herbology is just so _boring_ and he would rather spend his time practicing Transfiguration instead.

There’s a muffled guffaw to Kurt’s right that distracts him from his intense staring match with the clock. Kurt turns his head and pillows it on his arms while he watches Noah Puckerman and the other Slytherin boys poke at an adolescent scorpion vine with their wands. The short tendrils never quite reach their intended target of Puck’s hand, which is a pity because Kurt thinks it’d serve him right.

“ _Mr. Puckerman_ ,” comes the stern voice of Professor Longbottom from the front of the greenhouse. All eyes in the room turn to the back bench where the Slytherins are seated, even from some of the more peculiar plants. “If that vine decides to sting you, I will not be giving you the antidote for its poison until after the lecture.”

The scorpion vine rears itself back and makes a last ditch effort to reach Puck. Kurt watches in amusement as the plant makes a generous swipe at Puck’s face, causing him to push his chair so far back that it teeters on two legs. Kurt flicks his wand at the ground and Puck goes ass over teakettle onto the soft dirt of the greenhouse floor. The class titters with laughter as Puck, beet red from his embarrassing fall off of his stool, resumes his position at the bench albeit a safe distance from the very angry vine.

Professor Longbottom returns to his lecture and the class likewise resumes paying attention, except for one Hufflepuff in the front row whose nose is crinkled in amusement as he looks back at Kurt. Kurt stares back hard, eyebrows raised defiantly just like he’d practiced in the mirror in third year with Santana. The Hufflepuff shakes his head and recommences his note taking.

There are still ten minutes left of Herbology.

Kurt stares down at his notes with dismay. At the top of his parchment are the words _How to Pot a Firecracker Bulb_ but there’s nothing but crude scribbles beneath it. He supposes that one day he ought to take notes for the class but it probably won’t be any time soon. He's managed perfectly well on minimal effort before, just barely passing into the NEWT level course that Madam Sylvester told him to take during their OWLs meeting the previous year. Surely this year wouldn’t be any different.

Scratching in a stick figure of Puck and the scorpion vine fighting to the death, Kurt keeps himself from looking at the clock. He’d been told that a watched cauldron never boils and surely the same can be said of tortuously slow clocks. Finally the bell for lunch rings and Kurt’s the first out of his chair, throwing his things in his school bag. In his rush, he nearly forgets to cap his ink but manages to remember just before it splashes onto his satchel. If Kurt had ruined his favorite bag over his need to get out of the greenhouse as quickly as possible, he would have set the entire place on fire in retaliation.

Just as he’s passing the lectern, however, Professor Longbottom’s voice holds him back. “Mr. Hummel, a word please?”

 _Bollocks._ Kurt watches as his classmates hurry to lunch with jealousy. He turns to his professor and gives him his most charming smile. “Yes, Professor?”

Professor Longbottom shuffles some notes at his desk and then perches himself on the corner. “You don’t like this class.”

Kurt’s grin falters. “I wouldn’t say that, Professor. I love it! It’s an important part of my education.”

“Kurt.” The name comes out just like how his father says it when he knows Kurt’s lying. “For the past five years you’ve done the minimum required to pass. The only reason you’re in this class is because Madame Sylvester threatened to poison all of the mandrakes with an undetectable poison. However, at the rate you’re going now I cannot in clear conscience pass you.”

“It’s only the first of October, professor,” Kurt responds dryly. “You can’t fail me already, can you?”

Professor Longbottom sighs and reaches back for a stack of papers marked up in red. When he hands them over, Kurt’s horrified to find that they’re all of _his_ essays and tests. Each one of them with poorer marks than the last.

“This is a NEWT level course, Mr. Hummel. I expect the best from you,” he says sternly. “I’m recommending a tutor to catch you up. If your grades do not rise by Christmas holidays, I’ll have to fail you for the year. It’s too late for you to switch to a different course to fill up your roster.”

“A tutor?”

Professor Longbottom hums and turns to his desk. He picks up his grade book and flips through it. “There’s a Hufflepuff named Blaine Anderson who’s had top marks in this class since he was a First Year. Rare talent for Herbology and a nice boy. I’m sure he’d be happy to help if you let him.”

“A _Hufflepuff?_ ” Kurt echoes with disgust. “Are you serious?”

“I know that Slytherins haven’t had the best relationship with Hufflepuffs in the past, Mr. Hummel, but I’m sure that your grades are more important than some foolish inter-house rivalry,” says Professor Longbottom. “Speak to Mr. Anderson about setting up times for tutoring and don’t forget about your assigned reading. That is all.”

“Yes, professor,” Kurt all but snaps. He swiftly leaves the greenhouse and heads toward the castle at a brisk pace.

A Slytherin being tutored by a _Hufflepuff_. The word is venom in his mind and he kicks at the ground, sending up dirt and pebbles into the air. No Slytherin would ever ask a Hufflepuff for tutoring and nearly all of the teachers know that. It isn’t so much a rivalry as a point of pride. Every Slytherin is taught that Hufflepuffs are dunderheads, useful for nothing but pranks and bullying them into doing their homework.

Oh, but there’s a thought. Kurt smirks to himself. Surely it wouldn’t be hard for Kurt to convince this Blaine Anderson to do his work for him. From what Puck has told him, most Hufflepuffs even enjoy it. He just has to find this boy and sweettalk him into it. If there’s one thing a Slytherin is good at, it’s manipulating people.

Mercedes Jones, a Gryffindor and fellow sixth year, is waiting just outside of the Great Hall when Kurt enters the castle. She catches sight of his smug expression and immediately exclaims, “You’re planning something.”

“I’m a Slytherin, I’m always planning something,” he responds loftily. She hooks her arm through his and they walk toward the end of Gryffindor table. After five years of friendship, no one even blinks when Kurt sits down across from her. The Slytherins don’t care and the professors never notice; the Gryffindors only make a stir when Kurt takes all of the blackberry jam at breakfast.

They fix their lunches in companionable silence, but Kurt can still feel her watching him closely. Bloody Gryffindors are always suspicious, even after Slytherin changed its ways after the war. “Seriously, Kurt. What’s going on?”

“Nothing!” Kurt raises his hands in defense. He looks down the table at the rest of Mercedes’ housemates, judging whether or not they would be able to hear them from down at the end of the table. Kurt sees no Extendable Ears in sight and the rest of the table seems to be too engrossed with their meal and last minute essays to even notice them talking. He whispers under his breath, “Professor Longbottom just wants me to ask for tutoring. Some Hufflepuff named Blaine Anderson.”

“A Hufflepuff?” she whispers back skeptically. “You’re going to make this poor boy do all of your homework for you, aren’t you?”

“Hey, if he offers—“

“You have no morals at all.” Mercedes stabs her roast beef as if to make a point. “You don’t have to continue this dumb Slytherin tradition of hating Hufflepuffs, you know?”

Kurt glances up at her for a moment before looking over his shoulder at the Slytherin table. Santana’s holding high council from her usual spot directly under the Slytherin banner like a princess among peasants. Puck is gesticulating wildly and ducking an invisible foe, recounting his battle with the scorpion vine as the afternoon’s entertainment. No doubt he’ll leave out the part about falling off of his chair, though.

“Even if I cared about Hufflepuff, I would never leave myself in the mercy of Santana.” He chews his salad thoughtfully and pushes the lettuce around on his plate. “Remember Hank? He tried to be friends with a Hufflepuff once. Now he’s going to school in Iceland or Greenland or one of those ‘land’ nations in the north because the Slytherins considered it a betrayal.”

“How can you even stand the way they treat people?”

Kurt smiles tightly. “I have to. I live with them.”

They quickly eat their lunch and avoid the topic of Hufflepuff and Slytherin much to Kurt’s relief. Instead, they discuss Professor Schuester’s Transfiguration class and the complicated wand movement they need to memorize for the next day. Sometimes Kurt thinks Schuester is making things up as they go along and other times he thinks he’s using methods that haven’t been seen since the Dark Ages.

Eventually Mercedes rushes off to the library in order to cram for a test in Ancient Runes, leaving Kurt alone in the Great Hall until afternoon classes begin. He looks around the hall, contemplating on whether or not he should join his fellow Slytherins, when he spots his stepbrother Finn shoveling food at his face over at the Hufflepuff table. It dawns on him that he has no idea who Blaine Anderson _is_. Besides Finn, Kurt doesn’t know any other Hufflepuff. He’s probably had a dozen classes with this kid and Kurt wouldn’t be able to pick him out of a line-up. Resigned, Kurt picks up his bag and walks over to the Hufflepuff table.

The Great Hall is nearly deserted by this point with just a few stragglers sitting down to eat a quick meal before returning to their studies. The Hufflepuff table is the emptiest of them all and Finn is the only occupant at the end of the table nearest the teachers.

Finn barely looks up from his meal as Kurt sits down; instead he contents himself by eating with a ferocity that Kurt has only seen in Hippogriffs. Kurt stares at him for several long moments and when Finn finally notices that Kurt’s sat down across from him he opens his mouth with half-chewed food and asks, “What?”

Kurt sneers at the partially masticated pot pie he can see in Finn’s mouth and asks, “Do you know Blaine Anderson?”

Finn swallows and looks looks up at Kurt with the expression of a frightened House-elf. “Uh, does he owe you money?”

“What? No.” Kurt rolls his eyes. Leave it to a Hufflepuff to jump to the wrong conclusions. “Professor Longbottom’s forcing me to get a tutor for Herbology. Can you imagine that? Don’t you dare tell anyone, either, or I’ll tell Carole where her _Witch Weekly_ s keep disappearing to.”

“What does that have to do with Blaine?” Finn asks dumbly, cheeks flaring with a blush at Kurt’s accusation. There’s a bit of gravy on his chin and it makes Kurt feel sick to his stomach.

“He’s supposed to tutor me,” Kurt explains airily. “The problem is, I don’t know who he is. So just point him out to me or—“

“Oh!” Finn exclaims as if the light finally flickered on in his brain, earning the curious glances of his lingering housemates. He stands in his seat and searches for a moment, tongue peeking out of his lips. Kurt thinks it makes Finn look a bit like a puppy. Once he seems to spot who he’s looking for, Finn calls out, “Blaine!” garnering the glares of those within earshot.

“Finn,” Kurt hisses. “I’m trying to be discrete about this. You don’t have to-” Though he tries to stop him, Finn continues to wave his fellow housemate over to their section of the long table. The boy who walks towards them, with a spring in his step that Kurt recognizes as an inherently Hufflepuff quality, is actually kind of cute if Kurt could get past the pure joy on his face, as if everything he came across made him happy. “Never mind,” Kurt mutters.

“Afternoon, Finn,” Blaine greets before turning. When Blaine smiles at him, Kurt instantly recognizes him as the boy who’d looked at him during Herbology. “And you’re Kurt, right?”

Kurt nods suspiciously and holds his hand out for Blaine to shake. Despite any hesitancy he has toward the boy, never let it be said that Kurt Hummel doesn’t know how to be cordial. To Kurt’s surprise, Blaine’s manners seem to be of a higher caliber than the other Hufflepuffs he’s come across, and he introduces himself with a firm hand shake before asking if he may join them. Finn shrugs and returns to his pot pie, scooping it into his mouth with fervor.

“Finn’s told me about you,” Blaine explains as he takes a roll from the table in front of him. “He said you designed his mother’s wedding in a week. You must be the best Charms student in the entire school if you were able to pull it off in that short amount of time.”

“A week and a half,” Kurt corrects, but smiles with pride all the same. “And it was mostly transfiguration work, really.”

“Color me doubly impressed then.” He says it with so much charm that Kurt momentarily forgets that it’s a Slytherin rule to not get too friendly with Hufflepuffs. Kurt straightens his shoulders and returns to his Slytherin façade.

“I need help with my some of my Herbology homework.” Kurt slips him a hopeful smile, just a twitch of the lips and perfectly raised eyebrow. He laughs at himself. “Well, all of the assigned homework. I’m just not good at the subject. Professor Longbottom suggested that I find a tutor and recommended you for the job.”

If Kurt thinks that Blaine’s smile can’t grow bigger, he's dead wrong. Blaine seems to suddenly embody the sunshine yellow of his uniform. Kurt wouldn’t have been surprised if he bounced in his seat a little. “I’d love to help you, Kurt. I promise, once I’m done with you, you won’t regret it.” He stands and gathers his bag from the bench beside him. “Is tonight good for you? I think can reserve greenhouse three with Professor Longbottom.”

“Meet me after dinner outside of the greenhouses?” Kurt asks. Blaine nods and hurries out of the Great Hall.

From across the table, Finn eyes him warily. Kurt stands from the table, warning, “Not a word, Finn, or else Carole and Dad find out exactly what you did with Quinn Fabray this summer.”

-

As Kurt exits the Great Hall, he sees Santana watching him leave the Hufflepuff table. He knows it's only a matter of time before she catches up with him, and he prepares himself for whatever round of paranoid questioning she’ll throw at him. He’s surprised, however, that she waits until dinner to do so.

She hooks her arm around his just as he’s exiting the hallway to the dungeons and purrs, “Let’s take a walk, Hummel.”

“Good afternoon to you as well, Santana,” he responds cordially as she he leads him out of the castle.

Once they’re outside, Santana takes him on the long and winding path towards the Quidditch pitch. Though Kurt wouldn’t call Santana his friend under any pretense, they’re friendly enough that he’s been invited up to the Slytherin spectator box that she and her friends call their own even when there is no game being played. It’s the only place on the castle grounds that isn’t carefully watched by teachers, portraits, or ghosts, so naturally she’s chosen it as the place to smoke between classes.

They walk on in silence and normally Kurt would humor her need to intimidate her prey before pouncing, but he has classes to attend to that he can’t skive off. “Is there something particular you wanted to talk to me about or are we just taking in the view?”

They stop on the footpath and Santana turns to smile at him condescendingly. “I’m just worried about my favorite fairy,” she says, taking his hands in her claws. To the untrained eye, her grip would seem gentle or even affectionate, but Kurt’s barely able to contain his wince as Santana’s nails dig into the skin of his palms. “I thought you might have been hit by a Confundus charm seeing as how you spent lunch at the Hufflepuff table.”

“Sorry to disappoint, Santana,” Kurt says as he pulls his hands out of her grasp. There are half-crescent marks pressed into the skin just as he suspected. As he inspects the damage, he wonders if she puts them there as a sort of visible reminder. “No one has cursed me to my knowledge.”

“Why?”

There’s the question he’d been expecting all along. To answer with, ‘I need a tutor,’ would give her too much ammunition to use to bend him to her will. A Slytherin showing weakness is a prime target for bullying and Kurt’s had his fair share of that in the past. As a sixth year, he’s comfortable in his position on the social ladder, though he lacks the influence that Santana and Puck have. If he puts a toe out of line, though, all of his hard work would be wasted and they would never leave him alone. He wouldn’t want to damage his own reputation by giving away a weakness such as his Herbology woes.

Out of all of the Slytherins in their year, Santana is the most ruthless about traditions and one of the most passionate Purebloods anxious about keeping up appearances. Though everyone knows that he now has a step-brother in Hufflepuff, he suspects that, because of Slytherin’s popular anti-Hufflepuff sentiment, no one expects them to actually converse with each other.

So instead of telling her the truth he says, “I was speaking to Finn about Christmas holidays, as happens when family members go to school together.”

Santana rolls her eyes. “Couldn’t you do that in private? Slytherins don’t talk to Hufflepuffs. You know they’re all inbred.”

Kurt grits his teeth but doesn’t rise to her insults. She’s challenging him, but he isn’t in the mood for a fight. “Of course, Santana. I’ll be sure to _write_ to him instead.”

“See that you do, Hummel,” she replies. Santana pats him on the cheek and begins to walk toward the Quidditch pitch, leaving him alone on the deserted footpath. Once she’s out of view, Kurt turns and heads back to the castle, hoping that he has enough time to eat before he’s supposed to meet Blaine.

-

Since it’s still early for him to meet Blaine out by the greenhouses, he returns to the dungeons to pick up his books and Professor Longbottom’s most recent homework. His questionnaire on dragon dung fertilizer is due after the weekend but Kurt hasn’t even looked at the chapter yet. Who cares about uncouth things such as _dragon dung_?

Kurt certainly had no interest, that’s for sure.

Kurt doesn’t leave his dorm until five minutes after he’s supposed to meet Blaine. Maybe if he makes Blaine wait long enough, he’ll get bored and leave and Kurt will just _have_ to tell Professor Longbottom that Blaine just isn’t a suitable tutor. As an added bonus, it’d be a good story to share with the rest of Slytherin and their vitriol at Hufflepuff would definitely gain him some social standing, or at least house-wide sympathy.

He _could_ just not show up, of course, but that doesn’t sit right with him. Kurt could hear his father’s voice in the back of his mind telling him to keep his promises, even when those promises made his life a little difficult. With that in mind, Kurt walks to the greenhouses and is only ten minutes late from when he was originally supposed to show. Blaine’s leaning casually against the door of greenhouse five and smiles when he sees Kurt approach.

“Hullo, Kurt,” he greets as if they’ve known each other all their lives. “I was beginning to fear I had the wrong spot and was just about to check the dungeons.”

Kurt looks around to see if there are any students watching them but the grounds are empty. “Can we get into the greenhouse? Professor Longbottom signed it out to us, right?”

Blaine allows himself to be ushered into the greenhouse while answering Kurt’s question. “We have greenhouse three for the night, yes. If we want to sign it out for any other night, we need to talk to him. Were you thinking of having a regular study schedule? Personally, I think meeting at least twice a week would be prudent.”

When they’re safely inside the greenhouse and Kurt’s charmed the door locked from the outside, he turns to Blaine. “You Hufflepuffs _do_ talk a lot, don’t you?”

“I suppose,” Blaine answers vaguely. “You know, there’s nothing to be ashamed about. Being tutored doesn’t make you weak.”

“What?”

“That’s why you’re being so secretive, right?” Blaine walks around to one of the empty tables and perches on a stool. “It’s a Slytherin thing; you’re ashamed of seeming weak for being tutored in a subject that’s traditionally considered ‘easy’. I’ll keep your secret if you wish, but you must know that I don’t think you’re weak.”

“Why would I care about how you think of me?” Kurt narrows his eyes. “Besides that, how would you know about Slytherin values? You’re a _Hufflepuff_ , Anderson. Your life is sunshine and daisies and rainbows,” he spits.

Blaine holds his hands up in a defensive posture. “Please, Kurt, I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m just saying that you can trust me.”

The words hang in the air between them, thicker than the humidity of the greenhouse. Though he has no reason to, Kurt would like desperately to trust Blaine. It's not that the boy in front of him in particular is someone Kurt would want to trust, but the idea of having someone like that is appealing. That he's even thinking it, however, is a little off-putting. A pseudo-therapy session isn't what he expected from Blaine and isn't what he wants, but he'll play along for now.

“Fine. But if you tell anyone that we even know each other, I will hex your balls off and hide them deep in the Forbidden Forest,” he warns.

When Kurt sets his satchel down, Blaine grins at him like a puppy who’d successfully fetched a stick for its owner despite the threat he’d just received. It's adorable, truly, and Kurt kind of wants to pet Blaine on the head and call him a “good boy.” Instead, he shoves down the urge while he claims a stool and asks, “Okay, Mr. Tutor, where do we start?”

“Well,” Blaine says, the words drawn out as he flips through his own text book. “What do you need help on?”

Pursing his lips self-consciously, Kurt looks down at his book and the questionaire stuffed between its pages. “All of it?”

Blaine laughs. “Seriously?”

“You underestimate just how dreadfully _boring_ this class is. And this latest chapter! Fertilizer! How barbaric; I’m not some common farmer.” Again Blaine giggles and Kurt has to resist the urge to hex his mouth shut. “Oh be quiet. I will seriously never need to know this ever again, so why should I care?”

Calmed down from his burst of laughter, Blaine asks, “If you hate the subject so much, then why are you taking it?” His brows are drawn up in confusion but there’s still a smile on his face as if he’s truly interested in hearing why Kurt would choose to take Herbology.

“Madam Sylvester suggested that I take an extra NEWT, so I chose Herbology. I’d been okay at it before, enough to get an OWL for it, but now I find it impossible to even open my book,” Kurt explains. “Who cares about gillyweed when I have Transfiguration laws and wand movements to memorize? I find that much more enjoyable.”

“And it’s too late to switch this course for something else, of course,” Blaine says with the most patronizingly knowing tone. He takes his own Herbology book out of his bag and says, “And you haven’t begun the homework for Monday.”

It comes out less as a question and more of a statement, something that makes Kurt frown for a moment. Blaine doesn’t even know him, so he has no right to judge him so harshly. The least he could do is pretend to assume that Kurt had at least tried to complete it.

“No, I’ve not begun it,” Kurt says, not masking the annoyance in his voice.

Blaine nods and closes his book. “Okay, then why don’t we work on that first? We can get it out of the way and then make a list of things we should cover to catch you up.”

Kurt sighs and pulls out his parchment. He leans against the table and dips a quill into ink, ready to begin. “Fine, what’s the answer to question one?”

“I’m not giving you the answers, Kurt,” Blaine says sternly. “That wouldn’t be fair. You asked for my help, not my homework.”

“Oh come on,” Kurt whines. He looks up at Blaine through his eyelashes and bites his lip in what he hopes is a flirtatious manner, not that he’s ever dared flirt with a boy before. “It’ll take so long and I haven’t much time to complete it. If you help me just this once, I _promise_ that I’ll do all of my work from now on.”

Unfortunately, it seems that Kurt’s unpracticed charm doesn’t work on Blaine. He feels a bit like a failure of a Slytherin for that, especially when Blaine pushes his Herbology text book toward him. “Look up the answer yourself, Kurt. You’ll feel much more accomplished that way.”

Kurt resists the need to bang his head against the table, but only just, and slams the book open. He pointedly ignores the huff of laughter that Blaine lets out as he sets out his own work, instead choosing to find the chapter on, eugh, _fertilizer_.

He reads for a few moments but becomes frustrated quickly. Even as he skims through the chapter, he can find very little that would answer the first question of _Why would a wizard choose to use dragon dung over mooncalfe dung for certain magical plants_. All it tells him is that Screechsnap doesn’t like it very much and that’s not helpful at all.

Giving up the pretense of actually reading the text, Kurt pulls his wand out of his wrist holster and lifts it with the intention to do a minor finding spell, just a small one that might give him the answer he’s looking for. Before he can snap the tip of his wand down, though, a hand catches his wrist. Kurt looks across the table and sneers at the disappointed look Blaine is giving him.

“If you don’t let me go, I won’t hesitate to hex you preemptively,” Kurt hisses.

Blaine releases Kurt slowly, as if making sure to not make any sudden movement. “I know that Slytherins are stereotypically _cheaters_ , but I didn’t expect the rumors to be true.”

The accusation of being a cheater burns hot in Kurt’s chest and the mental image of his father’s disappointed face flashes in his mind’s eye. It’s making his father proud that makes him want to do better, not Blaine. If his dad ever found out that Kurt was less than honorable, it’d kill him.

So instead of looking up the answer with a quick spell, Kurt puts his wand away, but doesn’t hesitate to groan when he looks back down at the book. “God, at least give me a hint! There’s nothing here!”

“Number one is a trick question,” Blaine concedes. “We’ve used dragon dung before; use that knowledge and what the book isn’t telling you to deduce the answer.”

“What it isn’t telling me?” Kurt asks skeptically. Blaine nods and urges Kurt to think critically. “Okay, so we use dragon dung on semi-sentient plants. It makes them stronger, I guess, because dragons are more sentient than mooncalves?” When Blaine gives him a smile to indicate that he’s right, a small thrill rushes through Kurt’s body. He continues breathlessly. “And though some plants like screechsnap are sensitive to the bacteria found in dragon dung, others thrive in it like the fire seed bush.”

Blaine watches him in what can only be described as delight. He nods for Kurt to continue that line of thought, but Kurt can’t figure out _why_ they’d thrive, and it frustrates him because fire seeds are covered in first year Herbology. “What do dragons and fire seed bushes have in common?”

“Fire?” Blaine nods emphatically. “And since mooncalves are earth elementals, their dung wouldn’t be as effective for a fire seed bush?”

“Now you’ve got it,” Blaine says proudly. “Write it down and we’ll go on to the next one.”

Kurt tries not to glance up hopefully at Blaine every time he finishes a question but it’s hard. There’s something about his demeanor that Kurt finds comforting, like he’s back at home teaching his father how to bake crepes and working in the shop on lazy Sunday afternoons. Unlike his Slytherin compatriots, Blaine seems to have the uncanny ability to only see the positive, which isn’t as annoying as Kurt had thought it’d be when it's reinforcing good study habits.

When Blaine congratulates him for finishing three more questions on his own, Kurt allows himself a small smile. Maybe this tutoring thing won’t be so bad after all.


	2. Chapter 2

Just as Blaine told him, completing the Herbology worksheet on his own actually made him feel accomplished. It was different than the feeling of pride he got when he perfectly Transfigured a mouse into a couch the first time, but it still burned happily in his chest for the rest of the night. Blaine even congratulated him on his work when he checked the answers at the end of their tutoring session.

Likewise, when Kurt hands Professor Longbottom the assignment on Monday and then proceeds to sit, not at the back where the Slytherins goof off but in a middle row where he can pay better attention, his teacher gives him a look of astonishment. Kurt manages to fill a whole parchment with notes that day. After class, Professor Longbottom even commends the sudden turnaround in work performance.

“I see that you’ve contacted Mr. Anderson regarding tutoring,” the professor comments as he looks over Kurt’s homework. “These do seem to be correct – you didn’t copy his answers, did you?”

Kurt puts on his most innocent, shocked expression. “Of course not, Professor. I may be a Slytherin, but I do have pride.”

Professor Longbottom laughs. “My apologies, Mr. Hummel. The only Slytherin I knew back when I was a student here would have paid someone to complete assignments for him. Times certainly have changed.”

The sentiment strikes Kurt oddly, twisting in his gut like a curse as he thinks about Santana’s rule over the Slytherins. Times certainly have changed since before the war. Every Slytherin knows that. After the Second War, you couldn’t speak the name of Slytherin without getting a dirty look and it took several years for the house to rebuild its reputation. Unwritten rules had quickly been put in place to keep the house in high regard. Though Slytherin had never thought highly of _anyone_ outside of their own house, they had only begun specifically targeting Hufflepuff after those rules had been put into place.

“That they have, Professor.” Kurt smiles tightly at his teacher and heads toward the door. “If you don’t mind, I have to run to lunch. I have a practical in Transfiguration this afternoon and I’m supposed to study with a friend.”

Professor Longbottom waves him off and Kurt makes a quick exit. He does have an exam later, but he and Mercedes know the incantations and wand movements by heart. Really, Kurt just wants to escape. Sometimes professors like Professor Longbottom and Professor Schuester speak about when they were students and when the war was going on, and it makes Kurt faintly sick. His mother died capturing rogue Death Eaters, and though he’s come to terms with her death, it's still hard to hear about the war.

Kurt heads toward Slytherin table for lunch. He hasn’t made much of an appearance there in the past week, preferring to sit with Mercedes and talk about the newest single by Holly Holiday that premiered on the Wizarding Wireless Network the previous week and Kurt’s curiously chipper tutor (Mercedes bets that Blaine has an addiction to Pepper-Up Potion but Kurt isn’t so sure). Santana is sitting in her place of honor once again. When she spots Kurt heading towards her, she pushes Puck down the bench and pats the now vacant seat for Kurt to sit. As he’s walking down the length of the long table, passing the workaholic seventh years trying to achieve perfect NEWT scores, Kurt wishes he decided to eat with Mercedes instead.

“Hummel, I was wondering when you’d grace us with your presence. We’d begun to think we’d lost you to Gryffindor, given how much time you’ve been spending with _her_.”

Santana has always taken it as a slight that Kurt chose Mercedes as a best friend over her. It wasn’t that neither of them had _tried_ , it was just that they were too much alike to get along. Still, for some reason that Kurt can’t explain, Santana’s always been a little resentful, even if it’s partially her fault that Kurt wants to turn her into a toad most of the time.

Kurt sits where Santana indicates and returns her smile, doing nothing to hide his own cutting sarcasm. “They tried, but you know I can’t stay away from your beautiful face, Santana.”

The table laughs quietly and even Santana seems amused. “Kurt,” she purrs as she rests her hand on his thigh, “if you weren’t the gayest boy in Hogwarts, I would have had you in my bed already.”

Suppressing a cringe when she doesn’t move her hand, Kurt begins to fix himself a salad. He could respond, possibly make a joke out of it, but it would just annoy her. Kurt lets her have the last word, if only as an apology for being absent of late.

The table lapses back into whatever conversation they’d begun before Kurt arrived. A fifth year Slytherin named Cameron Mitchell tells the table about a prank that he and a few other Slytherin boys pulled off on the Hufflepuff Quidditch team the night before. They hit the whole team mid-air with a Weasley’s Patented Daydream Charm, causing many of them to run into goal posts, spectator stands, and each other until the charm wore off.

Kurt only half-listens to the story. Pranks and bullying aren’t to his tastes; he’d rather just ignore someone altogether if they bother him. Santana seems to enjoy it, because she squeezes his thigh with her claws every time she laughs; if Kurt were less intelligent, he’d snap at her for ruining the pleat in his pants. Santana has quick reflexes, however, and her hand is already far too close to vital organs.

When Cameron mentions the Hufflepuff seeker, Kurt’s ears perk up. “That Anderson bloke even fell off his _broom_! It was the funniest thing I’ve seen. You’d think that he’d have better reflexes than that. That beast of a woman they have for a head of house barely had time to catch him with a cushioning charm.”

Though he doesn't mean to, Kurt glances at the Hufflepuff table. Directly across from where he’s seated, Blaine is surrounded by his own group of friends, laughing at whatever Finn is telling him. His hair is perfectly slicked down as always and he’s changed out of his school robes in favor of a shirt and cardigan. Blaine looks handsome, warm and carefree. The way he’s talking with his housemates make Kurt realize just how differently their houses are. Kurt finds himself suddenly envious.

With a start, Kurt suddenly realizes what he’s doing. He looks away from Blaine to Santana, who had suddenly let go of his leg.

“Do you have a fetish for Hufflepuffs or something?” she snaps, eyes narrowed at him. The rest of the Slytherins around them look on in interest. “First you talk to Finn in public, and now you’re staring at their seeker.”

“Just making sure Mitchell’s story checks out. Surely if what he says is true, then there would be injuries,” Kurt explains smoothly. “From what I can see, not one Hufflepuff seems to have a scratch on them.”

Santana sucks on her teeth as she contemplates his lie. When she turns her glare onto the Hufflepuff table and then onto Cameron, Kurt does his best not seem too relieved that the heat is off of him. He follows her line of sight and is surprised to find Blaine no longer among the other members of his house.

Clicking her tongue in annoyance, Santana turns back to Cameron. “He’s right. There’s not one Hufflepuff in a sling or in bandages. If they were flying as badly as you’d said, someone would have been hurt.”

Finished with his lunch, Kurt beats a hasty exit. Santana is surely about to cut Cameron down to size and he’d rather not be a witness. Kurt’s not always a very nice person, and he’s definitely a little selfish, but Santana takes bullying to a whole different level that makes Kurt feel guilty for not standing up to her. He knows that it would be social suicide to do so. Despite only being a sixth year, she rules the house like an empress and could squash him like a bug if she wanted to. Kurt’s only choice is to remove himself from the situation so that he can claim plausible deniability if anyone asks.

Thankfully Santana doesn’t even notice when he leaves and he doubts she’ll seek him out. She has her entertainment in Cameron and Kurt seems to have appeased her for now. He might not even have to make much of an appearance in the common room for a few days.

Just outside of the Great Hall, Kurt finds Blaine leaning against one of the staircase banisters. He smiles at Kurt when he sees him and begins to walk toward him. “’Lo, Kurt.”

Kurt looks around wildly, heart hammering in his chest. He hisses, “Are you crazy? I said discreet. This is the exact opposite of that.”

“I may be a Hufflepuff, but I’m not stupid,” Blaine says. “If there were people here, I wouldn’t have approached. And if anyone leaves the Great Hall, just hex me and you’ll have your alibi. Here.” He holds out a piece of parchment for Kurt to take.

Kurt does so suspiciously. Written out in thin, sharp strokes are numbers and nothing else. Curiously, Kurt asks, “What’s this?”

“Times for tutoring,” Blaine explains. “I used the times you said you were available and matched them up with my own timetable. First number is the day of the week, the second is the time. You can always tell your roommates it’s a secret code if they find it.”

Kurt has to admit that it’s actually clever. That kind of ingenuity isn’t something he expected from a Hufflepuff – in fact, it’s almost Slytherin. “And if I can’t make it?”

Blaine purses his lips. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

Perhaps not that Slytherin-like, then. Kurt resists the urge to roll his eyes, but only just. “I’ll contact you somehow. I can be there tomorrow night – we’ll talk then. Now leave before someone sees us talking. It’d damage my reputation.”

With a laugh that is far louder than Kurt would have liked, Blaine walks towards the stairs that lead down to the Hufflepuff common room. Kurt watches him, curious. Whenever he says something like that to Finn, Finn becomes petulant and Kurt receives a strongly-worded letter from his father about being nice to his step-brother. Blaine, however, seems to be amused by everything Kurt throws at him.

“I see you staring.”

Kurt nearly jumps out of his skin. He spins in place and scowls at Mercedes. “You scared me. Are you trying to send me to the hospital wing?”

Mercedes laughs and links her arm with his. “I doubt that’ll get you out of Schuester’s exam. Not that you need to worry. Everyone knows that you’re the best in the whole school.”

Letting his best friend lead him up to the Transfiguration classroom, Kurt stuffs Blaine’s parchment into his bag. “Tell that to Rachel. She never stops judging me on my technique. She says my diction is off for every incantation and refuses to acknowledge any time I’ve achieved a complicated transfiguration before her. And Professor Schuester thinks that the sun shines out of her ears.”

“Forget about Rachel, Kurt. She can do what Schuester tells her to do, but you have real talent,” Mercedes assures him. “When we get out of Hogwarts, you’ll be on the cover of Transfiguration Today for your discoveries in material transfiguration and she’ll be doing research for the Ministry -- or worse, taking over Professor Schuester’s position.”

Kurt laughs all the way to the Transfiguration corridor.

-

As the weeks progress, Kurt finds that tutoring with Blaine definitely isn’t as bad as he thought it would be. Like most Hufflepuffs, Blaine’s gentle and encouraging when Kurt gets frustrated, which happens quite a lot. There’s an authenticity to Blaine that Kurt doesn’t often find in other people, and it’s a welcome change to the fake kindness of Slytherin.

This isn’t to say Blaine is his friend; on the contrary, Kurt thinks of him as merely a means to an end. Mercedes encourages Kurt to talk to Blaine about things outside of tutoring, but Kurt’s skeptical. She then tells him that he needs more friends that aren’t conniving, backstabbing Slytherins. He points out that her new beret could double as a festive tea cozy at Madame Puddifoot’s.

As if a Slytherin could ever be friends with a Hufflepuff! The thought is absolutely bizarre.

Regardless of Kurt's doubts, Blaine is true to his word and keeps his meetings with Kurt discreet. They make an arrangement with a portrait of a centaur on the third floor to relay messages; it’s not the quickest way to communicate, but it’s effective. However, despite their care, or perhaps because of it, things go pear-shaped three weeks into their arrangement.

Kurt finds Santana relaxing on his bed in the Slytherin dormitories after he finishes a grueling studying session with Blaine. They have an exam on chapters three and four in just under a week and Kurt just doesn’t feel prepared. He may be doing better at Herbology but he still lacks Blaine’s enthusiasm to learn. After the frustrating two hours of revising, all Kurt wants is a nice, hot shower and to sleep through the weekend.

Instead, Santana is listening to his wireless in his bed.

“Santana,” Kurt greets cautiously. In all the years he’s known her, she’s never visited him in his dorm room before.

Sliding one eye open to look up at him, she smiles, cat-like. “You get better wireless reception in here.”

“It took me four years to find the perfect spot in this god-forsaken dungeon.” He drops his bag onto his trunk and turns the volume dial on the wireless down. “Is there something you need?”

“Just wondering why you keep meeting that stupid little Hufflepuff, Blaine Anderson, in secret,” she replies sweetly. Kurt’s heart drops to his stomach in an instant. “I thought we were friends, Hummel. You can tell me these things.”

Kurt rarely finds himself at a loss for words, but the flash of what hell his life will be like from now on make him speechless. They’d been so careful to avoid being seen leaving the greenhouses together. Finn had given his word and Mercedes knew to not gossip about him. Did they sell him out? “I-I don’t. Why would you ask that?”

“A little horsey told me,” Santana explains slowly. She’s looking at him like he’s a particularly slow first year.

“I am going to burn that stupid portrait,” Kurt growls. He hadn’t expected a _centaur_ to be a gossip. It was difficult enough conversing with the painting as it was; Kurt thought that there’d be no way anyone would bother to ask it questions.

Eyeing her warily, Kurt takes his Herbology book out of his satchel. Pressed between two pages explaining the proper care for North American singing daisies is a progress report from Professor Longbottom congratulating Kurt once again on his improvements. The professor, it seems, likes to dole out encouragement when he thinks a student needs it. Kurt had plans to burn it with a quick incendio as soon as he had a chance.

“I’m being tutored,” he explains with a long-suffering sigh. “Professor Longbottom said if I didn’t have Blaine tutor me, I’d fail for the year. As much as I respect the Slytherin status quo, my father would be cross if I failed a course.”

Santana’s eyebrows knit together as she reads the parchment. Then she scoffs and drops the letter on the bed as she stands. “I can’t believe you’re failing _Herbology_. Seriously, that’s just sad.”

“So is Puck!” Kurt argues.

Santana snorts indelicately before her face softens. It’s a look Kurt’s seen very rarely since they were children, back when they’d thought they’d be best friends forever. Even last year, when they spent a disastrous Christmas together, there was a stiff edge to Santana’s happiness.

She pats him on the cheek patronizingly. “Yeah, but the most Puck’s going to do with his life is follow me around or get sent to Azkaban for impersonating an Auror. _You_ are actually going to do something with your life while the rest of us just wait to die.”

“That’s very, uh, nice of you, Santana,” says Kurt. “I think.”

She heads towards the door, leaving Kurt slightly bewildered. He expected yelling or curses or something more suspicious than this uncharacteristic kindness.

“I’m allowing it _for now_ , Hummel,” she warns, spinning to look at him as soon as she steps through the threshold. She narrows her eyes sharply and points a threatening finger toward Kurt. “Don’t become friends with him or whatever. You can’t trust Hufflepuffs. Don’t fuck it up.”

The door shuts and Kurt can hear her boots click softly down the corridor.

-

Besides the extremely weird exchange with Santana, nothing else unusual happens. Puck _tries_ to ask if Kurt's exchanging sex for Herbology answers, but Kurt cuts him off before he can get a word in edgewise. When Kurt sits down for breakfast the next morning, it occurs to him that Santana told _everyone_ about his arrangement with Blaine, and no one seems to mind. If they do, they're too scared of Santana to do anything about it. For once, Santana’s tyranny actually does Kurt more favors than cause problems. He mentally adds her to his Christmas shopping list.

With Hufflepuff’s impending game against Gryffindor in just a week, Blaine isn’t able to help him study on Saturday. He convinces Kurt not to open his Herbology text for a full twenty-four hours so that he can be more relaxed, but promises that they can work together on Sunday afternoon. They don’t normally spend a lot of time studying during the weekend but Kurt has been anxious ever since Professor Longbottom announced the test. When Blaine suggests the weekend tutoring, Kurt is more than grateful.

Kurt spends the rest of Saturday practicing the charms that Professor Pillsbury assigned them instead of Herbology. Though her coursework is heavy on unnecessary cleaning charms, Kurt finds her knowledge of tailoring spells extremely helpful. He already has a list of books on the subject he plans on sending his father. Mercedes pulls him away from his coursework mid-afternoon to watch the Gryffindor Quidditch team scrimmage against Hufflepuff. Kurt doesn’t understand why Gryffindor would want to scrimmage against the team they’re competing against, but goes along with it anyway. It’s a nice day out and Kurt could use the fresh air. Puck tells him to gather as much intel as he can when he passes him on the way to the Quidditch pitch.

Tina and Mike, two Ravenclaw sixth years, join them in the entrance hall and the four of them make their way down to the pitch. When they get seated in the stands, Mike takes a bottle of cider from under his cloak and Tina transfigures four mugs for them to drink from. The scrimmage is well underway around them, though it seems as though neither team is very pressed to win.

As Mike and Tina pour drinks, Kurt looks out on the field. He was once on the Slytherin Quidditch team as a reserve Seeker. He didn’t enjoy the position, nor the sport. It was fun being able to fly, but he only joined the team to make his dad happy. After two years of miserable practices, Kurt finally admitted how much he hated playing the sport and his dad suggested other activities they could bond over.

Above them, the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff teams circle each other in the air, but don’t seem to be in any rush. Knowing that Blaine is a Seeker for his own team, Kurt looks for him high in the sky. He easily spots Gryffindor’s third year Seeker but there’s no sight of Blaine anywhere.

When Tina pushes a mug into his hands, Kurt takes a sip of warm cider. “Where’d you get this, Mike?”

“Kitchens,” he chirps. “I have a friend in Hufflepuff who told me how to get in. Actually, I think you know him – Blaine Anderson?”

Choking on his drink, Kurt sputters over his words. “What? Who told you that?”

Mike looks thoughtful for a moment before he answers. “Sam Evans, I think. Or maybe it was Quinn?” He looks to Tina for confirmation.

“It was definitely Quinn,” Tina confirms. “She heard it from Artie who heard it from Brittany who heard it from someone else. She won’t say _who_ she heard it from, but you know Batty Brittany. She probably forgot.”

Kurt groans and covers his face with his hands. Brittany Pierce is the only other Hufflepuff Kurt knows, and that's only by reputation. He can’t help but wonder if this mysterious source isn’t Blaine himself. He shakes off the hasty accusation. Though he doesn’t know Blaine well, he thinks that Blaine isn’t untrustworthy. Blaine’s been good so far about keeping everything a secret. Whereas Kurt had expected him to slip up by greet him in the corridors when they passed, Blaine doesn’t even notice his existence. To the rest of the school, they were strangers.

He looks back up t Tina. “Does the whole castle know?”

Tina shrugs. “I don’t think so. If they do, they don’t care.”

“I think it’s just those of us in Schuester’s class,” Mercedes reassures Kurt, rubbing his back soothingly. “None of us want you to face Santana’s inevitable wrath.”

Kurt laughs wryly. That is the least of his worries. “Santana already knows, as does all of Slytherin, it seems. I think I’m on probation pending Santana’s whims.”

“Well that’s good, right?” Tina’s tone is hopeful enough to garner a small smile from Kurt. “Why worry over nothing?”

“You’re right,” Kurt concedes. “Toast to Santana?”

They clink their mugs together and settle in to watch the practice.

-

On Sunday afternoon, Kurt heads to his tutoring session with Blaine early. The greenhouse is empty when Kurt enters, but he’d expected that. He isn’t normally early, but he wanted to ask Blaine about Brittany; though he initially wrote off the thought that Blaine could have let slip their arrangement, it kept him awake for hours that night. He already found it difficult to fully trust most of the people in his life, and while the idea that Blaine let their association slip to one of his housemates was not something he expected from a Hufflepuff, he had no reason to think that Blaine would keep it under wraps when confronted either.

There’s an itch to Kurt’s skin as he waits for Blaine to show up, an anxiety that has nothing to do with his impending exam. He doesn’t think Blaine would be the type to tell – he’s too _honest_ and _noble_ for it. If Blaine _did_ tell Brittany about their tutoring sessions, there isn’t much Kurt can do anyway now that everyone seems to know about it. Professor Longbottom expects him to continue with their tutoring schedule. Their working relationship might become strained, but it’s nothing that Kurt hasn’t navigated before.

In the distance, the clock tower bell chimes five times. Several time-sensitive plants around him close their flowers and shrink away from the waning sunlight. The plants that awake at night point their heads east, awaiting the moon. The greenhouse is alive with the transition from day to night, rustling loudly as if there’s a breeze in the humid enclosure. Kurt waits.

And waits.

Five minutes turn into ten and soon Kurt becomes annoyed at Blaine’s tardiness. He’s never been late before and is often setting up their study materials long before Kurt shows up. It’s uncharacteristic and thoughtless of Blaine to keep him waiting without sending a note that they’d need to reschedule – this last night before the exam is important! Kurt didn't study all weekend because he thought Blaine would help him.

Once fifteen minutes pass without any sign of Blaine, Kurt begins to pack his things. If Blaine isn’t going to show, then Kurt has a million better things he could be doing. Grumbling about the average Hufflepuff’s short attention span, he stuffs his parchment and quills roughly into his bag. When the parchment tears on one of his books, Kurt’s grumbling turns into growling. Damn Blaine for standing him up like this! No one stands up a Slytherin without a very, very good reason. Kurt can’t imagine anything that’d keep a Hufflepuff from helping someone – except possibly food.

Just as Kurt approaches the greenhouse door, it bursts open with Blaine rushing in from outside. They nearly collide but Blaine places his hands on Kurt’s shoulders before any harm is done, steadying them both.

“Kurt,” Blaine greets hollowly. His eyes don’t meet Kurt’s for a moment, as if his mind is lost far away. Kurt’s never seen Blaine so distracted before and it takes a few moments for him to make a move at all. When he seems to realize that Kurt’s carrying his bag and on his way out of the greenhouse, his eyes finally slide back into focus. “Where are you going?”

“I didn’t think you were coming,” Kurt says, aiming to sound disdainful, but it come out a little petulant instead. He steps back into the greenhouse and places his satchel on the workbench he was sitting at. “Where were you? Not that I _care_ , but you’re never late.”

“I’m sorry I’m late. I had to floo home for something.” He hesitates as if unsure if he wants to disclose anything to Kurt and hefts his bag up higher on his shoulder. Kurt surprises himself by actually feeling concerned for Blaine. “Nevermind, it doesn’t matter. I’m here now.”

Blaine steps around to the other side of the table, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. It is then that Kurt notes Blaine’s soot-covered clothes. Unlike his usual casual wardrobe of cardigans and jeans, Blaine’s in full wizards robes. He pulls off the heavy brocade outer robe to reveal a smart black suit with a soft green vest. Blaine continues to shed layers in the humid greenhouse, revealing clothes that are so perfectly tailored to his body that Kurt can’t help but admire them. Kurt looks back up at Blaine’s face, dismayed to find a frown there as he begins to pull text books and paper from his bag.

“Are you okay?” Kurt asks with some trepidation.

“No,” Blaine replies shortly as he sets out his textbooks. He spares Kurt a glance before returning to his mission of unloading his entire school bag on the table. “It’s not as bad as whatever you’re thinking about. Trust me.”

“That isn’t very reassuring,” he points out. “You look like someone who got into a fight with a Dementor and lost.”

Blaine chokes when he laughs, as if he’s trying to keep himself from crying, and it’s a sound Kurt never wants to hear again. It’s broken and hopeless, and though he hasn’t known Blaine long, he didn’t think he was capable of such sadness. Blaine is so joyful and almost puppy-like in his exuberance that it’s hard to acknowledge that he isn’t perfectly happy all the time.

Kurt lets him pull himself back together, sitting quietly on his stool while Blaine allows himself to be distracted by organizing his quills on his desk. When Blaine speaks, he’s quiet and reserved. “I wish it were that simple.”

Curiosity strikes him then, and Kurt can’t help but press for more. Tentatively, he asks, “Then what is so terrible that Dementors are a better choice?”

“Nothing,” Blaine snaps. “I didn’t think Slytherins cared about Hufflepuffs.”

“We don’t,” Kurt snaps back, hackles raised at Blaine’s sudden attitude. Of course Slytherins and Hufflepuffs aren’t friends; no Hufflepuff is even worth a Slytherin’s time. That’s the first thing Kurt learned when he put on his Slytherin tie for the first time. Blaine is nothing to him. “Did you tell anyone about us?”

Blaine looks at him sharply, confusion clouding his eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“Well, Santana knows about our tutoring sessions, as do the rest of the Slytherins and some others. Apparently one of your housemates found out.”

"You mean Brittany? She asked me about it but I didn't say anything to her." Blaine runs his fingers through his hair, breaking it free of the Sleekeazy holding it in place. “You have to believe me, Kurt. I’m not like that. I’m _not_ a-“

Blaine stops himself before he can finish the sentence, but Kurt knows what he’s about to say. “Not like a Slytherin, you mean.”

“I didn’t mean it like that. Please believe me, I didn’t mean it like that,” begs Blaine. His hair is completely wrecked now, strands sticking up and curling where the gel is no longer holding it in place. It’s the least together Kurt’s ever seen him and he gets a sadistic kind of glee out of it.

“I don’t know what to believe anymore,” he hisses. “I was so sure I could trust you, but I guess I was wrong. I suppose Santana doesn’t have to worry about you and I becoming friends.”

The tense silence that follows is almost unbearable, with neither boy willing to bend. Unceremoniously, they both quietly open their Herbology texts to read over the chapter. It’s another half hour until they quiz each other, not speaking any more than they have to. When Kurt leaves the greenhouse that afternoon, he can’t help but feel a little guilty. Blaine _is_ a nice guy, even for a Hufflepuff, but Kurt’s too stubborn to apologize. He doesn’t get much sleep that night.

-

The rest of the week is absolutely awful, with neither Kurt nor Blaine particularly willing to converse for any length of time. Despite their resentment towards each other, they’re both too stubborn to ask Professor Longbottom to make other arrangements for Kurt’s tutoring. This makes the hours they’re together almost tortuous from the tension. Kurt thinks that the worst part is that Blaine doesn’t even act angry; he just sits there, completely closed off from Kurt, like one of the silent suits of armor that line the Hogwarts corridors.

Blaine becomes rigidly formal in his tutelage. He only speaks when he needs to and provides Kurt with only the barest of information. Studying becomes frustratingly difficult for Kurt because Blaine isn’t willing to help him figure things out. Instead, he gives yes and no answers when Kurt asks if his essays are correct and ignores him completely when Kurt tries to weasel the further information out of him. Still, Kurt sticks with it because having the the correct answers for Professor Longbottom’s class is better than _not_ having any answers at all.

Kurt decides to tough it out. If he can increase his grade enough, he might be able to give Blaine the boot and still scrape by with a passing mark. He reminds himself that his dad would be more proud that he tried to do well in a difficult subject than to give up and fail. Some nights, it becomes his mantra as he tosses and turns, waiting for sleep to take him. This thought keeps him going for a week, but by the weekend Kurt’s imagining all of the horrible spells he could cast at Blaine. The fantasy of hexing Blaine’s hair right off becomes a particular favorite.

By Saturday, however, Kurt’s had enough of Blaine's attitude. Blaine’s been especially cold and so scathing that Kurt thinks that Santana would be impressed. Kurt’s halfway through an essay and every time he recites a paragraph from his paper, Blaine answers with a condescending _tch_ , which only makes Kurt want to hex him between the eyes even _more_.

Finally, he snaps.

“ _What_ is your problem? You’re sunshine and daisies last week and now you’re acting like-” Kurt hesitates for a moment, but then screws his face up in disgust. He echoes Blaine’s earlier sentiment: “You’re acting like a _Slytherin_.”

Blaine seems to find the irony of Kurt’s accusation funny because he laughs before he looks away at the half-bloomed plants on the sill across from them. The muscles in his jaw tighten and his throat bobs as he swallows. Kurt wonders if he’s gone too far; with the way that Slytherins treat Hufflepuffs, he wouldn’t doubt if they considered being called a Slytherin an insult. Besides, Blaine said the same thing the weekend before. Surely Hufflepuffs didn’t think very highly of Slytherins if Blaine didn’t want to be associated with them.

An uncomfortable, strained silence descends upon the greenhouse. If Blaine chose now to back out of their arrangement, especially since he seemed to hate it and was getting nothing out of it, Kurt wouldn’t blame him. It’d be a win-win situation for them both at this point. Kurt wouldn’t be blamed by Professor Longbottom if Blaine terminated their agreement and Blaine wouldn’t have to put up with someone he obviously couldn’t stand anymore.

Then Blaine sags against the table, his shoulders hunching as his head drops. The defeated posture is surprising on a Hufflepuff, but these last few days have proven that Blaine doesn’t often fit the stereotype. He speaks so quietly that Kurt at first doesn’t think he’s actually talking, and Kurt has to strain to understand him. “I’m sorry. I should have told you as soon as I’d found out that Brittany knew – I really _don’t_ know how she found out. She won’t tell me. And I don’t think that all Slytherins are terrible. You’re quite nice once you warm up.”

There’s a pang in Kurt’s heart as Blaine smiles at him. Despite their argument and the week where they were both too stubborn to apologize, Blaine still thought he was nice. It wasn’t a compliment Kurt was offered often and he can’t help but smile back.

“I’m sorry,” Kurt admits quietly. There’s a slight shifting beside him as Blaine turns to him. He keeps his eyes fixed to a spot on the greenhouse wall; he doesn’t think he could handle whatever look Blaine was giving him. “Slytherin politics – it makes you paranoid, I suppose. I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions, though perhaps its Santana’s fault. She said you couldn’t be trusted.”

Beside him, Blaine heaves a sigh. “Is it so bad to be friends with a Hufflepuff?”

“To them it is,” Kurt answers truthfully.

“What about to you?”

Kurt considers it a moment, turns the thought over in his mind. Being friends with a Hufflepuff is a foreign concept, but it isn’t entirely unpleasant to think about. Slowly, Kurt turns to Blaine and catches his gaze. Blaine looks hopeful and it takes Kurt’s breath away, so he answers with, “No, it wouldn’t be bad at all.”


	3. Chapter 3

Hogwart’s Transfiguration Society meets every Tuesday and Thursday directly after the last class of the day, as well as every other Wednesday at seven PM, in a disused classroom in the Transfiguration corridor. At least, that’s what the notices say on the bulletin boards in every house common room. The reality of the matter is that they meet whenever Rachel Berry harangues them into meeting.

This is especially true now that the Ministry’s transfiguration competition is in just a few short weeks. The once-empty classroom is now full of a whole house’s worth if items made from chalk and quills. The whole club is entering into the synchronized group category against the Wizarding Academy of Dramatic Arts in London and Rachel has gone crazy with preparations.

“We still don’t have a _theme_!” she cries as she paces around giant bird cages and a grandfather clock that is slightly chalky-looking. “Last year we lost because we didn’t have cohesiveness.”

“We could go with _food_ ,” Lauren Zizes suggests as she sharply taps an opened package of Ice Mice and turns it into a three-course chicken dinner which still looks a little frosty around the edges. Lauren’s a Gryffindor and Puck is absolutely in love with her. It’s the only thing Santana and Puck ever fight about because Lauren isn’t well-connected or rich. Her biggest ambition is to move to the United States and become famous for doing nothing. Kurt thinks that she’s perfect for Puck.

Frustrated by the lack of creativity spewing from her audience, Rachel banishes both the idea and the chicken with a violent flick of her wand. “Food is too easy. We have to think _bigger_.”

While Rachel lectures on how the WADA team have been practicing their incantations for months, Kurt files his nails as he reclines in an ornate wing-back chair he transfigured from a piece of parchment at the beginning of the school year. He’s not too interested in winning the group category seeing as how he is entering in the solo competition. Kurt may be against Rachel, Mercedes, and whomever else the school in London chooses to represent them, but he’s been able to do these transfigurations since he was a second year. The competition will be a piece of cake as far as he’s concerned.

“I don’t see why you care about the group award,” Santana says off to Kurt’s left. She’d transfigured herself a golden throne from a spare galleon, the symbolism of which makes Kurt roll his eyes every time she lounges in it. While it does look beautiful, there are still tiny dragon motifs left over that Santana swears are there on purpose.

“Because I want to win.” Rachel looks at Santana as if she’s gone crazy. “I want to see our face on the cover of Transfiguration Today and I want us to be invited to Paris for the International Transfiguration Conference. We could be _famous_!”

“How magnanimous of you, Rachel,” Kurt chirps derisively. He drops his emory board into his satchel and gets to his feet. “I’d love to stay and watch you pace all afternoon but I still have three inches left to write for Potions. If you’ll excuse me?”

“But we haven’t even begun to practice!” she argues back.

“And we’re not likely to if we can’t even agree on a routine,” Kurt counters.

He walks determinedly toward the door. It only takes a moment before he hears the sound of someone following - a pair of heels clicking behind him as he walks away. From past experience, he knows that Puck and Santana will follow him back to Slytherin whenever he gives Rachel an excuse. Though Santana holds dominion over the rest of their house, Rachel has staked her claim on the Transfiguration Society with an iron fist. Santana is only happy to let Rachel run the club because even she can admit that Rachel has the raw talent necessary to make them the best.

Kurt waves to the rest of the club over his shoulder. “Find me when you give in and ask Professor Schuester for ideas.”

The corridor is empty when they step out of the room. Puck stretches his arms out and yawns, smacking the helmet off of a suit of armor.

Santana tsks him and sets the helmet back in its proper place with her wand. “Puck, do you have to destroy everything you touch?”

“It’s a compulsion, okay?” he responds, voice gruff. “I see something, I gotta knock it over.”

“Or up.” Kurt grins devilishly.

Puck grips the front of his uniform as if wounded. “That hurts, Hummel. Thought we were mates!”

Kurt opens his mouth to quip back but a fourth voice interrupts them suddenly. “Kurt! Wait up!”

The three Slytherins spin on their heels as one, watching as Blaine runs down the corridor after them. He’s juggling an arm full of books about a dozen sheaves of parchment and his hair is completely devoid of the Sleekeazy that normally keeps control of his hair.

Kurt knows what Puck is going to do even before he pulls his wand out. He grimaces as Blaine trips over the jinx Puck shoots at his feet. Blaine crashes to the hard stone floor, books and papers thrown out in front of him as he tries to catch his fall. Kurt has to look away – he could have prevented it and that thought makes him feel terribly guilty.

Santana and Puck don’t even try to hold in their amusement and if Kurt doesn’t join them in their ridicule soon, they’ll begin to wonder if Kurt’s gone soft for the Hufflepuff. Kurt smirks down at Blaine briefly before turning back to his friends. “Look, why don’t you two go back to Slytherin without me? Knowing this idiot, I might be a while. I’d hate to see you two having to associate with the likes of him.”

Much to Kurt’s relief, his cohorts leave swiftly. He watches as they turn the corner and disappear out of sight.

“I’m so sorry,” Kurt says as he drops to his knees to help gather Blaine’s fallen belongings. The papers contain essays on soil samples and magical plan diseases, things that are covered in seventh year NEWT classes. There’s no obvious order to them so Kurt gathers them as quickly as he can and passes them to Blaine.

As he accepts Kurt’s help, Blaine gives him a self-depreciating laugh. “I’m surprisingly used to it, don’t worry. I suppose running after three Slytherins wasn’t the most intelligent decision I’ve ever made – should have seen the jinx coming, really.”

Rising to his feet once Blaine’s belongings are no longer littering the middle of the hallway, Kurt holds his hand out to help Blaine up. “I’m not just sorry about Puck.”

Books and papers back into his arms, Blaine runs his fingers through his messy locks. “I know. Slytherin politics and that rubbish, I don’t mind so long as you don’t mean it.”

Kurt smirks at him as he begins walking to an alcove where they can talk. “Not all of it, but there may be a grain of truth in what I said. Conciseness isn’t always your strong suit, Blaine.”

Blaine laughs at that. “I think that’s the first time I’ve laughed all week, thank you.”

Though Blaine smiles as he says it, his face doesn’t light up with nearly the same brilliance that it normally does. It’s almost criminal to think that someone so unerringly enthusiastic wouldn’t be able to smile and mean it. Kurt can hardly keep himself from frowning.

“I know it’s none of my business but—“ Kurt hesitates, biting his lip. “Are you okay? You’ve been, well, kind of a mess lately.”

“I’m fine,” Blaine says quickly, look at the floor.

Kurt’s knows enough Slytherins to recognize the lie right away. If the bags under Blaine’s eyes are any indication, he’s not fine. Kurt wonders if it has anything to do with his trip home two weeks ago. Though they’d only met twice since they’d made up, Kurt’s noticed a decline in Blaine’s mood. Perhaps to everyone else Blaine seemed perfectly together like usual, albeit a little harried looking from studying so often. Kurt, however, was beginning to see the chips in his armor just from spending so much time with him. Blaine seemed to never be without friends when Kurt passed him in the halls, so it was a wonder how no one else had noticed as well.

There’s no reason for Kurt to press Blaine into telling him anything, though. Their friendship is still tentative at best and Kurt’s still learning just how far he can push with Blaine because he’s fairly certain that Blaine would tell him anything even if it made him uncomfortable. When Kurt asks too many questions, his friends usually let him know but Blaine’s genuinely open nature means that he won’t stop Kurt when he’s gone too far. For some reason, Kurt really wants this friendship to work so he’ll drop it for now and see what happens.

“Was there something you wanted to talk about?” Kurt asks.

“Oh! Yes.” Blaine sets his books on the ground and searches his bag for a moment before producing a letter. “Professor Longbottom sent me an owl. Apparently he’s had to shut up half of the green houses due to a mysterious fungus that’s infecting half of his plants. He doesn’t want it infecting the rest of the green houses so he’s quarantined everything.”

“So….” Kurt trails off, uncertain as to what that has to do with him.

“We can’t get greenhouse three for studying for the foreseeable future,” Blaine explains. “With the study groups getting together for revising, we won’t be able to get a private green house for our tutoring sessions.”

“But I’m doing so much better!” It was true; Kurt’s recent essay came back with perfect marks and he was even contributing in class discussions. “I can’t just stop now.”

Blaine holds his hands up in defense. “Whoa. I meant that we have to find another place to study.”

Relief floods Kurt instantly. Sheepishly he mutters, “Sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Blaine replies, waving off the apology. “There’s an alcove in the library that I study at. We won’t be able to do any practical work but you’ve not needed much help there anyway. Would you like to meet at the front of the library after dinner tomorrow? Professor Longbottom has decided to change his lessons because of the quarantine so I want to make sure you’re prepared for it.”

Kurt agrees to meet him the next day and they part, Kurt returning to the dungeons while Blaine walks towards the Hufflepuff basement. They’ve never studied in, well, _public_ before. Kurt still doesn’t even acknowledge Blaine when they pass in the halls. Though he assumes that most of the school is aware that there’s a Slytherin being tutored by a Hufflepuff – hardly a scandal but still interesting for students to gossip over lunch – no one has actually seen them together.

Suddenly, Kurt feels slightly queasy with nerves. Somehow, these afternoons with Blaine have become important to him like when he watches telly with his dad or shops with Mercedes. He doesn’t want anyone to ruin this unlikely friendship.

-

Weeks pass by quickly. The greenhouses are still quarantined as Professor Longbottom studies this mysterious ailment, so Kurt and Blaine find themselves retreating into the library without asking to sign out a greenhouse to study in. With the frigid cold of late autumn sweeping through the castle grounds, Kurt’s more than happy to stay indoors as much as he can.

On the first Friday of the month, Blaine sends Kurt a note at breakfast wishing him luck in the transfiguration competition that afternoon and reminding him that they won’t be able to meet for a few days as he’s going home to visit his family. Kurt burns the letter as soon as he’s finished reading, worried that Santana might find it strange that a Hufflepuff was wishing him well. Before Herbology, Kurt writes him a note in return and slips it onto Blaine’s desk when no one is looking.

The competition is a success and the Transfiguration Society is awarded the honor of being published in Transfiguration Today regarding their spellwork. Kurt even gets a small article on his technique of turning butter into butterflies without causing the wings to melt upon flight. Rachel wins the solo competition, of course, and even Kurt has to admit that she deserves it. Not many people can manage to transfigure innocuous objects into magical creatures, but Rachel’s unicorn is proof enough that she deserved it. Kurt’s almost afraid of what she might create when they go to the national conference in Paris.

When they’re dismissed by the judges, Kurt’s first thought is to owl Blaine and tell him how it went. He could wait until Monday, of course, but he’s not sure if he wants to. Though they do a lot of studying together, Kurt finds himself just talking to Blaine about anything that comes to mind. Blaine tells Kurt stories of Hufflepuff house, all of which are surprisingly interesting. As they get to know each other as more than just peers, they begin to find many shared interests. Muggle fashion and music are two of their top favorite things to talk about and Kurt lets Blaine borrow his Holly Holiday record when he admits that he’d never heard anything more than what the WWN plays.

Knowing that Blaine is one of the first people he wants to share his exciting news with, he pens a quick letter and gives it to a school owl. After that, Kurt writes a much longer letter to his dad and sends it off with his own owl, Patti. He watches both birds fly south until he can no longer see them and goes down to dinner.

Blaine’s reply comes at lunch on Saturday, full of congratulations and a funny anecdote about his absent-minded grandmother. This is how they begin a correspondence on the days where they aren’t able to meet. There are things that Kurt finds himself able to talk about on paper that he’s never been able to say aloud. Blaine, too, shows a judgmental side that Kurt’s certain he doesn’t often let anyone see. From teachers to housemates to students Kurt’s never even met, Blaine unloads his grievances on Kurt like a diary and Kurt eats it up, wanting to be the only person Blaine tells these things to.

Soon, though, Santana begins to grow suspicious. Kurt tells her that he’s merely conversing with Finn through owl, as per her suggestion, but she still watches the school owls fly away with Kurt’s response, as if she can track them all the way to Blaine. Kurt begins to become paranoid that Santana will discover the truth that he decides to put a stop to their correspondence altogether.

“I don’t think I can just _stop_ talking to you every day, Kurt,” Blaine says him when Kurt tells them this as they’re walking to the library. The greenhouses are all signed out for the rest of the week as people prepare for practical exams so Kurt and Blaine are delegated to the library with the rest of the student body.

They round the corner and Kurt looks around for any eavesdropping Slytherins. “I don’t see why, Blaine. I don’t speak to Mercedes every day and she’s possibly my best friend. Why is it so important that we converse every day?”

Blaine laughs in this amused way whenever Kurt says something that he assumes is extremely un-Hufflepuff. “Because we’re _friends_ , silly. How else am I supposed to be your friend if I don’t know what you’re thinking about every minute of the day?”

“You could always learn Legilimency,” Kurt suggests with a smirk.

“I concede,” Blaine says. “Lord knows I _don't_ always want to know what is going on in that devious head of yours.”

Kurt furrows his brows and shoots a glare at Blaine. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Once again, Blaine laughs as if Kurt isn’t in on his joke – and he isn’t, which possibly makes it worse. “I’m teasing, Kurt. You need to lighten up once in a while. Laugh at yourself.”

“I will ‘lighten up’ as soon as Slytherin hosts a slumber party with kittens and rainbows as the theme,” he quips as they reach the library.

Blaine pulls open the large wooden doors and bows Kurt inside. “And I assure you, Hufflepuff would be the first to RSVP. We _are_ known for our love of small, fluffy animals after all.”

They make their way through the library, avoiding the tables where clusters of Slytherin fifth years sat revising for their owls. As they walk deeper into the stacks and toward the dustier volumes that the library has to offer, Kurt says in a low voice, “And here I thought that you said the stereotypes for Hufflepuff were wrong.”

“Kurt, _everyone_ loves cute baby animals,” Blaine says just as quietly. The groups of students thin out until they reach an alcove with an empty desk and no other student in sight. “Don’t tell me that Slytherins are immune to puppies and kittens.”

Kurt shoots him a pointed look as they sit down with their books and essays. “They’re nice to look at, but they shed. Do you know how hard it would be to get cat fur out of this jumper?”

Blaine gives Kurt’s outfit a once-over and then looks back at him with an unimpressed gaze. “You take the fun out of everything, Kurt Hummel.”

“No, you’re just not interested in the Slytherin standard for fun,” Kurt explains haughtily.

“Hmm, and what’s that? Bisexual orgies and general debauchery?”

Kurt rolls his eyes and shuffles through his things for his spare quill and ink. “Despite popular opinion, being a Slytherin isn’t all about sex, drugs, and Muggle rock music.”

“It isn’t?” asks a voice from directly behind him. Kurt looks over his shoulder and sees Batty Brittany standing at the end of a row of books on medieval magical history. She has a general look of confusion on her pretty face, but from what Kurt’s heard from Blaine this is normal for her. “Hello, Blaine. Why are you hiding behind that book?”

Kurt looks back to Blaine who has indeed buried his face behind a large textbook. When he doesn’t answer Brittany straight away, Kurt grabs Blaine’s book and forces it to the table. Blaine fumbles immediately, eyes going wide with panic, but just as quickly tries to play it cool as he replies to Brittany.

“Sorry, just studying.” Blaine is flushed, which Kurt finds endearing. “Is there something you needed, Brittany?”

She smiles and skips toward their table, more graceful than Kurt’s ever seen anyone move. She perches herself on the desk and leans over to Blaine. “So you know how I’m going for a perfect score of Hufflepuffs I’ve made out with, right?”

Blaine swallows thickly, and his unease at Brittany’s proximity provides plenty of amusement for Kurt. He tries to stamp down the urge to use this moment to his advantage; Blaine is a friend now, after all, and it probably wouldn’t be very nice to consider his discomfort as good blackmail material.

“I’ve heard about this project, yes.” Blaine leans as far back in his chair without tipping over. “How far along are you?”

“Well, you’re the next person on my list,” she says happily. “I’m on a very busy schedule, so we should make out now.”

From where he’s seated, Kurt can see Brittany pucker her lips and lean just slightly forward toward Blaine. Blaine jerks back and his chair slips out from under him, crashing him to the hard, slate floor. Kurt can’t help but laugh loudly and leans forward so that he can watch as Blaine groans from the ground.

Brittany watches him with an even more confused look on her face as she swings her long legs. “Blaine, what are you doing on the floor?” she asks.

“I fell,” Blaine groans as he struggles to stand. He tips the chair back upright and sits down, far enough from Brittany that she isn’t likely to try kissing him again.

“Oh,” she says, pausing to think about it a moment. “Can we still make out?”

Blaine sighs and rubs over his brows with the tips of his fingers. He’s clearly frustrated at Brittany’s insistent question. “No, Brittany. I’m sorry, but I can’t make out with you.”

At that, Brittany makes a sad noise in the back of her throat. Kurt’s heart breaks for her, because she seems like a very sweet girl albeit a little slow. Blaine isn’t looking at her and is instead digging through his bag in order to focus on something other than Brittany’s barely-audible hiccups.

There’s a moment of internal struggle in Kurt’s brain before he taps her on the arm. “Brittany?”

Brittany spins on the table and looks down at Kurt. Her eyes grow saucer-wide when she gets a look at the color of his robes. “You’re a Slytherin. I’m not supposed to talk to Slytherins.”

Kurt’s eyebrows furrow in confusion for a moment before he says, “It’ll be our little secret, okay? I’m Kurt.”

“Okay, Kurt,” she says as smiles at him. “Do you know how I can get Blaine to make out with me?”

“I’m not sure,” he answers quickly. “But you know, as a Slytherin I’m worth at least five Hufflepuffs.”

“Are you?”

Kurt nods solemnly. “So if I give you a kiss on the cheek, then you’ll still be able to count Blaine.”

“Really?” Brittany’s face lights up and Kurt wonders if maybe Blaine was lying and that there _are_ some Hufflepuffs who conform to the stereotype. “Did you want to make out instead? Making out is lots of fun.”

Kurt smiles at her but shakes his head. “Sorry, Brittany, I’m gay.”

“So is my best friend but she still makes out with boys. She says it’s good to practice.”

Unsure of what to say about that, Kurt looks at Blaine who is pointedly _not_ looking at either of them. Instead, his nose is buried in his homework, as if neither of them exists anymore.

Kurt turns back to Brittany and says, “Let’s stick with cheek kisses, okay? And if anyone asks, you can just tell them Blaine kissed you. No one would be interested in hearing about how you kissed me.”

“Okay!” she chirps. Brittany leans down low enough for Kurt to reach her face and giggles when he pecks her cheek. She does the same for him and hops off of the table. “Thank you, Kurt! See you later, Blaine!”

Once she’s gone, Blaine slides his chair back across from Kurt. His cheeks are stained so red from embarrassment that looks as if he’s been hexed scarlet. Kurt’s thinking about how well the blush goes with his skin tone when Blaine finally speaks.

“Thank you,” he says quietly. Blaine’s finally looking up at Kurt, staring in awe like he’s performed a miracle. Distracting Brittany from Blaine wasn’t even difficult and Blaine probably could have dealt with it if he wasn't so flustered.

“Blaine, are you okay?” Kurt feels like he’s a broken record, though it’s only the second time he’s said the words aloud. All month Kurt has wanted to bring Blaine to the hospital wing or force him to drink some Pepper-up potion. Though he doesn’t look as disheveled as he had several weeks ago, there are bags under his eyes that weren’t there before.

Blaine’s lips press into a thin line as he looks away. He sets down his book and chews on the end of his quill thoughtfully. Kurt can practically hear the gears turning in his head. “How do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Be so, I don’t know, open?” He looks up at Kurt, staring intensely as if doing so would give him all the answers to whatever he’s afraid of saying. “You’re a genuine person, Kurt. You might not show all of your cards to your housemates and you might play them to get what you want, but otherwise you don’t hold anything back. How can you do that so easily?”

Kurt smiles with amusement. “I’m not sure. I guess I don’t have much to hide – besides, you know, our friendship.”

Blaine looks at the quill in his hands as he twirls it against the desk. It is utterly fascinating to see Blaine like this. Even when he’s stressed, Blaine is personable and enthusiastic. At first, Kurt had thought that Blaine was just this guy who received top marks and played Seeker and helped wherever he was needed. Kurt had assumed that there wasn’t much to Blaine except a generous heart and a sunny disposition.

Now Kurt sees that buried deep, hidden from _everyone_ is something a little more vulnerable. The Slytherin side of him that sounds suspiciously like Santana immediately wishes to latch onto this and exploit it for Kurt’s own gain. He stomps it down mentally, allowing himself only rationality and a little bit of kindness.

“Blaine,” Kurt prompts. He keeps his voice gentle so as to not scare Blaine into clamming up. “What are you hiding?”

“Nothing!” Blaine assures him quickly. “I just don’t, uh, flaunt it.”

Kurt’s eyebrows knit together in confusion. “Flaunt what?”

“I’m gay,” Blaine says in a quiet voice, eyes darting around before looking at Kurt once again. Somehow, Kurt is unsurprised at this admittance. Blaine has never talked about girls before and his interactions with Brittany were uncomfortable at best. After a moment of steeling himself, Blaine explains, “I’m proud of who I am and I won’t lie to those who ask, but it’s hard sometimes. Not everyone is as accepting as we’d hope them to be.”

There’s a momentary flash of sadness in Blaine’s eyes that make Kurt want to reach out and console him. Then, as if it were never there in the first place, he watches Blaine close up again, forcing his perfect mask back into place. It makes Kurt want to scream and he knows the frustration must show on his face.

“Look, don’t worry about it,” Blaine says as he opens his book again. He’s once again enthusiastic and chipper, as if hadn’t shown Kurt his vulnerabilities. “I’m fine, Kurt. Hufflepuff, remember? Acceptance and all that rot. They practically threw me party when I came out.”

Taking a chance, Kurt manages to ask if Blaine’s parents know he’s gay to which he gets simple, “Yes,” before they move on to working on Professor Longbottom’s latest assignment. Kurt so desperately wants to push, ask Blaine who it is that doesn’t accept him and then possibly kick their ass for it. He doesn’t even get a chance to. Blaine puts their studies back on course by immediately asking Kurt to answer some fundamentals, distracting him enough that he hasn’t the time to subtly ask Blaine more about his coming out.

As he’s quickly finding out, Blaine is the most interesting person Kurt’s met in all of Hogwarts. Though Slytherins can be secretive, they have none of the mystery that seems to surround Blaine. He was wrong earlier. If Blaine didn’t want to tell him something about himself, Kurt wouldn’t know unless Blaine was absolutely ready to talk about it. It took Blaine two months to tell Kurt that he was gay – what else could he be hiding? Kurt knows that he’ll have to be more subtle with his questions and possibly offer telling Blaine his own insecurities in return, but he's certain he'll get Blaine to open up to him eventually.


	4. Chapter 4

Winter descends quickly upon the castle and with it, the first snow of the season. By the end of the first week of December, Madame Sylvester has already been around with a sign-up sheet for those remaining at Hogwarts for the winter holidays. Because Madame Sylvester is known for giving idle Slytherins impossible tasks just to amuse herself, no one in Slytherin is stupid enough to stay in the dorm for the break.

A year ago Santana begged Kurt to invite her over for the holidays as she deemed him the only Slytherin worthy of her presence. Feeling charitable, Kurt asked his dad for permission and spent the week doing nothing but wishing that the Unforgivables were a little more forgivable. Though Santana was nice enough to Burt’s face, she was not the best house guest. Carole Hudson had just begun dating Kurt’s dad, and every time Finn came over to watch their television, the tension radiating off of Santana was unbearable. Plus she ate all of Kurt’s Christmas sweets, which was really the final nail in the coffin of his kindness. By New Year’s, he’d convinced Santana to stay with someone - _anyone_ else - so as to preserve whatever affection for her he had left.

As for Kurt, he’s never had to stay for the holidays or bum a visit off of a friend. His dad is lonely enough during the year without him, and he hates to spend the holidays alone. However, Kurt’s heard from other students in Gryffindor and Ravenclaw that staying at Hogwarts for the holidays is absolutely the worse. There were few people who were around to talk to and the usually interesting castle quickly became boring. Besides, who would want to be alone in a drafty, old castle on Christmas?

Soon the entire castle is bursting with excitement for the holidays. Kurt finds himself twice as busy as usual, as each of his professors either assigns a project to be completed before everyone leaves for Christmas or schedules an exam on the last day of term. It has Kurt and Blaine in the library every night instead of just a few times a week, helping each other with more than just Herbology.

Kurt's social life is suddenly jam-packed. If he's not hanging out in the Transfiguration Society room, listening to Mercedes and Tina discussing their plans for the holiday, Santana's forcing him to go shopping with her during the last Hogsmeade weekend of term. While Kurt would normally loathe being alone with Santana for any length of time, he does love a good shopping excursion. They’re so alike in their sense of fashion that the afternoon is actually enjoyable, except for a few intrusive questions about Blaine. Thankfully, Kurt’s able to distract her with food and the promise of getting her something very nice for Christmas before she can ask too much.

Blaine, meanwhile, seems to be the only person in all of Hogwarts not in a festive mood. Whenever the subject of the holidays comes up, he quickly changes the subject or pointedly ignores Kurt’s inquisition about his holiday plans. Kurt even catches Blaine hexing a singing suit of armor one day, though Kurt thinks they do sort of deserve it. As Christmas creeps ever closer and the stress of end of term projects weighs heavy on their shoulders, Blaine begins to withdraw and become sullen. It’s a complete turn-around from the boy Kurt had met in late September. Whether the enthusiastic, cheerful Hufflepuff was a mask then or if this morose phantom masquerading around as Blaine is due to extenuating circumstances, Kurt’s determined to get to the bottom of it.

The one time that Kurt asks what’s wrong (“Why are you so upset? You look as if Christmas has been cancelled.”), Blaine storms out of the library in a huff. Kurt’s left staring after him in shock, unsure of what he said wrong. The next day, Blaine slides into his usual seat across from Kurt and mumbles an apology, which Kurt accepts graiously.

With the sudden lack of free time to just talk instead of revise, Kurt isn’t able to ask about Blaine’s life as much as he’d like. He does learn that Blaine’s a sixth generation Pureblood, and that his older brother Warren was meant to take over the family business but chose to be an artist instead. Other than that, Kurt has nothing to go on to figure out what is troubling Blaine. He decides to go to a different source.

Though they share a dormitory and play Quidditch together, Finn and Blaine run in different circles. Kurt would find someone else to ask, but the only other Hufflepuff he’s met is Batty Brittany and he’d rather keep her as a last resort.

Two days before they’re set to leave for Christmas, Kurt grabs Finn by the lapels of his robe and pulls him down a deserted corridor. Santana is still adamant on Kurt not associating with any Hufflepuff when he can help it, and that includes his step-brother.

As soon as Kurt lets go of Finn, his step brother raises his arms in defence. “If this is about Christmas gifts again, I swear I followed your list to the letter.”

“Good, but this isn’t about that,” Kurt says. “Do you know why Blaine’s been so upset lately? I just saw him growl at a few first years when they told him Happy Christmas.”

Finn frowns. “I don’t know much, just that he’s the only Hufflepuff staying in the castle for the holidays.”

“Why wouldn’t he tell me? I thought we were friends.” Kurt matches Finn’s expression and crosses his arms over his chest.

“Blaine doesn’t really talk much about himself,” Finn replies, shrugging. “He’s a nice guy, but he doesn’t let many people get close. You probably know more about him than I do and I’ve lived with him for nearly six years.”

This bothers Kurt because, while Blaine hasn’t been an open book, he isn’t as distant as Finn’s implying. Blaine probably has a half dozen other close friends to keep his secrets. Surely Kurt isn’t the only one he turns to.

Without saying goodbye, Kurt rushes off in search of Blaine. He wants to hear from Blaine himself that he’s not going home for Christmas and hopes that his friend will tell him the reasons why. In the nearly three months that Kurt’s known him, Blaine’s Floo’d home a total of five times. Kurt assumes that if they could bring him home then, they’d want him home now. Though he supposes that they could just be away on vacation and have no way of bringing their son along, Blaine’s attitude is less like a child throwing a temper tantrum and more like someone who’s been betrayed by a loved one.

Kurt finds Blaine in greenhouse six, tending to a Cow Plant that the Herbology Club recently adopted. Greenhouse six is one of the few untouched by the mysterious malady infecting many of the plants, and it’s usually full of students looking for a place other than the library to revise. Now, however, Blaine is the only person in sight with his back turned to the entrance. Over the soft rustling of leaves from the more active plants, Kurt can hear a soft sigh.

He reaches forward and places his hand on Blaine’s shoulder. “Blaine, tell me what’s wrong.”

Blaine jumps as if he hadn’t heard the greenhouse door open and lops off one of the plant’s large, healthy leaves. The Cow Plant makes a growling noise and bares its sharp teeth but doesn’t otherwise threaten to make Blaine his meal. Putting down his sheers, Blaine rolls his shoulders and says, “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about me.”

Kurt snorts. “Blaine, you’re my _friend_. I’m going to worry about you whether you want me to or not.” He pulls Blaine’s shoulder so that he’s turned around and is startled to find Blaine’s face emotionless, dull eyes looking somewhere over Kurt’s shoulder. “ _Blaine._ Why didn’t you tell me you were staying at the castle for Christmas?”

Blaine finally makes eye contact, but his expression is no less frightening. He looks like a shell of a boy, too tired and too numb. It’s only when he speaks that Kurt hears the small inflections of emotion, proving that his Blaine is still in there somewhere. “I tried to reason with them all term but they – my parents – they don’t want me home for Christmas.”

Kurt lets instinct take over, wrapping his arms around Blaine’s shoulders even though Blaine doesn’t hug him back. He’s well-versed in comforting sad friends, and though it’s usually a girl who’s staining the shoulder of his robes with tears, Blaine is no different.

They stand like that for several moments until Blaine finally surrenders into the embrace. He snuffles into Kurt’s neck and clings tightly, tears finally spilling over as if he’s been holding them back for a very long time. Blaine spends so much time pretending to be one thing for other people that Kurt suspects that he’s begun to trick himself as well.

When Blaine pulls away, he wipes his eyes on his shirt sleeve stares at the ceiling for a few seconds, blinking away tears. Kurt wishes he could hide Blaine away in his trunk and bring him home, but Professor McGonagall and Madame Beiste are already expecting Blaine to stay at the castle. Adding to that, Kurt’s not sure if his father would allow it after the unmitigated disaster that was Santana’s visit.

“Thanks, Kurt,” Blaine says quietly. He’s already pulling himself together, building up his defenses once more. Kurt’s so familiar with it now that he’s able to tell when Blaine’s enthusiasm is just a mask. “Are you ready for Professor Longbottom’s exam tomorrow?”

Kurt smiles tightly, simultaneously wanting to ask about _why_ Blaine’s parents don’t want him home and wanting to send them a nasty letter full of bubotuber pus that will leave their hands covered in boils when they open it. Instead, he follows Blaine’s lead and asks him to recite the five main magical plant diseases one more time.

-

Kurt and Finn meet their parents on Platform 9 ¾ on the early afternoon of the twenty-second. Around them is a cacophony of parents and children greeting each other in similar fashions, all glad to see one another. Though Kurt feels guilty leaving Blaine behind at Hogwarts, it’s good to see his dad and Carole again after a very long first term. Once he says goodbye to Tina, Mike, and Mercedes, he rushes to his father and step-mother and greets them with hugs. As Burt and Carole ask them how term went and help carry their bags to the car, Kurt can’t help but think of Blaine. If his parents had wanted him home, what would they have greeted him with? Would it have been with the stiff formality that Kurt finds from many of his Slytherin housemates? But Blaine’s a Hufflepuff; would they be warm and loving? Kurt can’t imagine so if they refused to see Blaine home for the holidays.

“Okay there, Kurt?” Burt asks as he places a hand on Kurt’s trolley to steer it toward the car.

Kurt nods. “Just thinking.”

“Not too hard, I hope,” his father jokes, clapping him on the shoulder affectionately. After years of having to interpret the nuances of each other’s body language, Kurt knows that it’s dad-sign for, ‘I’m here if you need to talk.’ That just makes Kurt feel sorry for Blaine even more.

Carole claps her hands together. “Since we’re in London, let’s stop in Diagon Alley. We could grab lunch! I need to pick one last gift I ordered.”

The boys agree, though Kurt finished his shopping in Hogsmeade with Santana last week, and he'd helped Finn owl order all of his Christmas gifts through catalogues. Neither of them needs to buy more gifts, but he supposes one more shopping trip won’t hurt (especially if he can find something nice in Twilfitt & Tattings that will match his cream-colored robe).

They drive to the Leaky Cauldron in Burt’s magically modified car, which is larger on the inside and can fit into the tightest corners with ease. Being Muggle-born, Burt grew up appreciating Muggle technology and craftsmanship. After his own time at Hogwarts, he apprenticed at a Muggle auto-shop with the intention of converting Muggle vehicles for magical use. Though there are easier, magical means of transportation for wizards and witches, Muggle culture is a new trend among Pureblood wizards, so the Hummels manage to do well for themselves. When Burt isn’t converting cars, he spends his time as a Muggle mechanic – the best in England, he’s been told. When he’s asked how he’s so good at fixing cars, he just winks and says, “Magic.”

At the Leaky Cauldron, they have lunch and Finn tells their parents about the Hufflepuff Quidditch team and how they’re doing better this year now that Coach Beiste is their head of their house. Kurt only listens to half of the conversation, instead choosing to stare out the window at the street outside and wonder about what Blaine might be doing at that very moment. Again his father asks if anything is troubling him, but Kurt fields the question by asking his dad about how the garage is doing.

For the rest of the afternoon, Burt watches Kurt like a hawk. He suddenly feels like he’s thirteen again, on the cusp of coming out. His father had watched him then as well, willing and ready to talk about it when Kurt was. Kurt feels raw and overexposed by the time they get home and retires to bed far earlier than normal.

As he finishes he nightly skincare routine, his father knocks on the door and stands at the threshold. He looks at Kurt through the mirror of his vanity, contemplation on his face. Kurt expects him to ask what’s wrong, but Burt just sighs and says, “You’ll come to me if you need me, right?”

“Of course, dad,” Kurt replies. He hugs his father goodnight and crawls into bed. As he falls asleep, Kurt thinks about how it isn’t him who is in need, but Blaine.

-

Kurt spends all of the twenty-third thinking about Blaine and what he must be doing. Several times he considers sending him an owl but decides against it. What if Blaine doesn’t want to be reminded of what he doesn’t have? Would it be selfish of Kurt to owl him about Carole’s cookies or Finn’s adventure in Sainsbury’s for the Christmas ham? There’s a wrapped present on the bottom of his trunk with Blaine’s name on it, ready to be owled on Christmas Eve. Would it be appropriate for Kurt to still send it? Are Blaine’s parents sending him presents? If Kurt _doesn’t_ send it, will Blaine wake up to no gifts on Christmas morning?

By the time Carole’s made lunch, Kurt’s so worked up over Blaine being alone on Christmas that he nearly makes himself sick.

“Staying at Hogwarts isn’t uncommon, you know,” Finn tells him. “I’m sure Blaine’s fine.”

Still, Kurt can’t help but think of how he’d feel in the same situation. Blaine is a friend now, and a great one at that. They have their problems, but even when they're mad at each other, Kurt wouldn’t wish this loneliness on him. Kurt would never admit it out loud, but he’s certain he wouldn’t wish it on Santana either.

Thinking about Santana reminds him of the Christmas she spent at his house. It had been an unmitigated disaster, but at least she hadn’t been alone for Christmas. Would the Headmistress allow Blaine to stay with him for the week? Would Blaine _want_ to spend the holiday with a family he doesn’t know? With the renovations he’s helped his father with over the summer to turn their small house into something big enough for their new family, there’s a guest bedroom where Blaine could stay. Carole’s sure to make more food on Christmas than even Finn can consume and Kurt could give Blaine his Christmas gift in person.

Thoughts of bringing Blaine home for a real Christmas swim through his head, but it isn’t long until he realizes that there’s one detail he’s forgotten: he needs permission, not only from Professor McGonagall, but from Blaine’s parents and Burt as well. Though he's a kind man, Burt’s still fiercely protective of his family, and Kurt doubts he's forgotten the disaster of Santana’s stay with them. Sure, she was nice and polite like a well-bred Slytherin ought to be, but Kurt had still complained about her attitude after she had gone. Hopefully that experiment won’t effect Kurt’s plan.

Kurt finds his father watching telly in the living room with a cup of tea after lunch. When Kurt sits on the other side of the couch, Burt turns the television off and looks at him. “You ready to tell me what’s on your mind?”

“I have this friend,” Kurt starts.

Burt holds up a hand to stop him there. “Is this going to be one of those things where you’re asking a question about a friend but it’s really about you?”

Kurt shakes his head. “No. Blaine’s real. He’s a Hufflepuff in my year.” He pauses to take a breath and Burt urges him to continue. “His parents don’t want him home for Christmas so he’s all alone at Hogwarts.”

“And you wanna ask if it’s okay for him to spend the holidays with us?” Kurt nods, biting his lip. “This isn’t going to be a repeat of that Satan girl, is it?”

“Santana,” Kurt corrects. “And no, it won’t be. Blaine’s a nice guy.”

Burt grunts and gives him a calculating stare, as if wondering whether Kurt’s hiding anything from him. “If it’s okay with the Headmistress and this Blaine kid’s parents, then it’s fine.”

Kurt bounces in excitement. “Thanks, dad!” He gives Burt a kiss on the cheek and runs off to pen three owls: one to Blaine, one to Headmistress McGonagall, and one to Mr. and Mrs. Anderson.

-

 _Blaine-_

 _I know we haven’t been friends long, but ever since you told me you’d be at Hogwarts for Christmas, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. I’ve asked my dad and we’d love to have you for the holidays, so long as your parents and the Headmistress give us permission._

 _Send an owl back as soon you can. Hope to see you tomorrow!_

 _Your friend,  
Kurt_




-

The letter to Blaine’s parents is much more difficult than the other two. All he knows about the Andersons is that they are Pureblooded, and while Kurt is familiar with many nuances of Pureblood Slytherins, he isn’t sure if the same goes for Pureblood Hufflepuffs, as he assumes the Andersons are. So Kurt sits at his desk and writes several different letters until he is satisfied.

-

 _Dear Mr. and Mrs. Anderson,_

 _Good afternoon, my name is Kurt Hummel. I am owling you on behalf of your son Blaine, who has informed me that he will be staying at Hogwarts for the Christmas holidays. I would therefore like to extend an invitation to stay with my family on his behalf. Though Hufflepuffs and Slytherins haven’t always seen eye-to-eye, your son has helped me greatly this past term by tutoring me and I’d like to help him in return._

 _If it is alright with you, my father, Burt Hummel, and I will pick Blaine up tomorrow so that he can enjoy Christmas with us. He would then spend the rest of the holidays with my family and return to Hogwarts on January second via Hogwarts Express._

 _I hope to hear from you soon regarding this matter._

 _Happy Christmas,  
Kurt Hummel_




-

While Professor McGonagall’s return letter allowing Blaine to stay with Kurt takes no time at all, there is no word from the Andersons as to their decision. Kurt spends the entire morning bustling around the house cleaning and looking out all of the south-facing windows for sign of Patti. By the time his dad calls him to lunch, Kurt is angry and upset. How dare the Andersons ignore his invitation to let Blaine stay with his family! Though they ignored Blaine’s request to go home, they could have at least allowed him to stay with Kurt.

Kurt stabs his roast beef savagely as he eats. Perhaps he could sneak Blaine out of the castle just for Christmas Day. If they could get past the wards surrounding the castle, they could use the Hogsmeade Floo point to get home. They’d be in trouble with the Headmistress, of course, but surely he’d be able to talk his way out of it.

Before Kurt can finish planning breaking Blaine out of Hogwarts, there’s a faint tap-tap-tap on the window. Kurt looks up to find Patti hovering just outside of the window with a letter in her claws. Just as Kurt pushes his chair out, his father is opening the window and allowing the bird in to drop the message right on top of his sandwich.

Kurt quickly feeds Patti a bit of his roast beef before tearing the wax seal on the envelope. The letter itself is very formally written and is as impersonal as a legal notice. Kurt’s gaze jumps around the parchment several times before he’s able to make heads or tails of the archaic language. He jumps in excitement when he does, much to the amusement of his family.

“They said yes!”

-

Kurt tries not to stumble when Burt Apparates them just outside of Hogwarts gates, but it’s difficult to get his footing on the slick ice coating the path. Burt grabs his arm just before he can fall, but the loud, joyful laugh that meets their ears indicates that his landing was still less than graceful. They look up to find Blaine watching at them through the wrought iron bars, happier than Kurt’s seen him in a long time.

“Took you long enough,” he says breathlessly. “I was afraid you’d changed your minds.”

Kurt smiles at Blaine fondly as he and his father head through the gates. When they reach Blaine's side, he says, “You didn’t have to wait for us here. Dad has to sign you out still.”

Blaine dips his head in embarrassment, but his grin doesn't waver. “I know. I had nothing better to do and I guess I was a little excited. I’m sure it seems a little stupid to you.”

Kurt is hardly able to reply with, “Just a little,” before Blaine is grabbing him in a bear hug right in front of his father. Apparently, they’re friends who do that now – or perhaps unsolicited hugs are just one of the hazards of befriending Hufflepuffs. He hugs back awkwardly and pretends to not hear the thanks Blaine whispers into his neck.

When Kurt’s father coughs awkwardly next to them, Blaine pulls away. He puts on his brightest smile and holds his hand out for Burt to shake. “Hello, Mister Hummel. I really appreciate you letting me stay with your family for the holidays. I hope it’s not too much trouble.”

Though Burt’s expression was initially that of suspicion when they approached Blaine, he's smiling now. Burt even cuffs Blaine on the back like he does with Finn - a brief touch that makes Blaine’s eyes go wide. “Call me Burt. Got your stuff packed?”

After a moment , during which Blaine watches Burt’s face with utter fascination, he nods as he pats the inner breast pocket of his robes. “I shrunk them down – I wasn’t sure how we were traveling and I didn’t want to make it difficult.”

“Why don’t you boys go into town, then? No need to follow me up to the castle if you don’t need to.”

Agreeing to meet Burt outside of Honeydukes in half an hour, Kurt and Blaine step through the Hogwarts wards and towards the busy main street of Hogsmeade. With Christmas less than twelve hours away, the village is awash with last-minute shoppers. They stand in the middle of the crowd and look around, unsure of where to go first. There are no students around from what Kurt can see; he thinks Rachel is the only Slytherin who lives in the village. He needn’t worry about anyone seeing him with Blaine and tattling to Santana.

“Do you need to do any shopping?” Kurt asks.

Blaine shakes his head before looking at his feet with some embarrassment. “When Mother gave me permission to spend the holidays with your family, I asked the Headmistress if I could go into town for a bit. I didn’t want to stay with you and not get them any gifts.”

Kurt laughs brightly. “When Santana stayed with us last Christmas, she didn’t bring anything. She claimed she didn’t have a Galleon to her name but everyone knows her family’s filthy rich.”

“Santana stayed at your house?” Blaine asks, nose and eyes crinkling with amusement. “What kind of blackmail does she have on you?”

“She’s a Slytherin,” Kurt explains simply. “She’s a bitch and I hate her most of the time, but Slytherins take care of their own. I couldn’t leave her to the mercy of Madame Sylvester.”

The look in Blaine’s eyes is unfamiliar. It’s curiosity mixed with something else, almost as if Blaine is seeing him for the first time. It makes Kurt vaguely uncomfortable, like he’s being looked at through a Magnification Charm.

“How about Honeydukes?” Kurt asks, trying to dispell the awkward moment. “Since we have to meet Dad there anyway.”

They head to Honeydukes and peruse the shop for a while, buying very little but reminiscing at length about their first Hogsmeade trips. When they’re finished, they stand outside the shop and wait for Burt, who appears not a minute later. Grabbing both of their elbows, Burt Apparates them home.

When they arrive, Carole gives Blaine a hug like he’s a son she hasn’t seen in months. The look on Blaine’s face is utterly surprised as she coddles him, asks him how his term was and if he’d like a slice of her homemade apple pie. It makes Kurt wonder what kind of people the Andersons are that Blaine isn't the type to anticipate this standard greeting. If Kurt didn’t know better, he’d think Blaine a bit in love with his family. He can’t really blame Blaine for becoming attached so quickly; Carole is, after all, quite the welcoming committee. Still, Kurt can't help teasing Blaine about it while he helps him unpack in the guest room.

“It’s not-I don’t,” Blaine stutters, trying to find the words. “Your step-mum is just really nice. And your dad – I mean, my mum….”

Blaine trails off, eyes darting around the room nervously as if he knows he’s said too much. Though Kurt is curious about what kind of family Blaine has, he knows it isn’t the right time to ask. He’s still raw from not being able to see his parents for Christmas. Instead, Kurt changes the subject and tells him about all of the Vogue issues that he’d come home to, waiting for him on his bed.

In the afternoon, Blaine, Finn, and Kurt help Carole bake cookies and decorate gingerbread houses and after that they watch whatever god-awful Christmas film they can find on ITV with Burt. Blaine, not having much experience with Muggle telly, is absolutely enraptured. It’s one of the few pieces of Muggle technology they own – when Kurt’s mum died, Burt had bought the television and a stack of films to entertain Kurt while he learned how to be a single parent. Television is one of the few things Kurt and his dad have found that they can bond over, and sharing it now with Blaine makes it somehow even more special.

Burt and Carole retire to their room some time around National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, and Finn follows them soon after. Though the day has been long, Kurt finds that he’s not remotely tired, because he has Blaine to talk to. The excitement of Christmas is overshadowed by his happiness to be with Blaine. It’s almost midnight when they finally decide to go to bed. They’ll be tired in the morning but being able to spend so much time with Blaine without worrying about who could possibly overhear them is nice; it affords them a level of openness that they can't usually reach, even in those moments when they're silent. The Hummel house is a relaxed atmosphere and in the few hours that he’s been there, Blaine’s seemed more at ease than Kurt’s ever seen him. As he lays down to sleep, Kurt finds himself excited to see how the rest of the week unfolds.


	5. Chapter 5

“Kurt, wake up! It’s Christmas!”

Finn pounds on the door, making Kurt wince. He glances at his alarm clock and, when he sees that it’s only seven thirty, rolls over and shuts his eyes. As soon as he does so, Finn is pounding on Blaine’s door and telling him to wake up as well. Kurt clutches his pillow tightly and tries to ignore all of the noise coming from the hall. This works for a few moments, allowing Kurt to settle deeper into his duvet, sleepy and warm, until there’s a soft knock on his door.

“ _Whaaaat?_ ” Kurt whines.

“Kurt, your step-brother is the most obnoxious alarm clock I’ve ever had,” Blaine says, shuffling into Kurt’s room and falling heavily onto his bed. The mattress squeaks loudly as it bounces and any thoughts of going back to sleep disappear when he realizes that Blaine isn’t leaving. In fact, Blaine is burrowing his head into the pillow next to Kurt’s, making snuffling, contented sounds.

Kurt rolls over and looks at how happy and comfortable Blaine looks, a stark change to how he’s been for the past month and a half. It makes something inside of Kurt glow with unfamiliar warmth, like he drank a Butterbeer laced with Pepper-Up Potion. It honestly makes him a little breathless and a little nervous, especially with how close Blaine is lying. It’s a little too intimate, so he sits up from his warm and comfy burrow of blankets.

“Usually I just ignore him,” Kurt says, yawning and running a hand through his unruly hair, trying to make it less bedhead-chic and more stylishly tousled. He usually doesn’t let people see himself so unkempt, but Blaine doesn’t seem to know that rule yet. If the mess of curls plastered to one side of Blaine’s head is anything to go by, Blaine doesn’t seem to care for the rules at all. “Nice hair. Did you get that professionally done?”

Blaine snorts and reaches to the floor where Kurt had placed the throw pillows the night before. He weakly tries to swing it at Kurt’s face but misses. Kurt, being in a better position, promptly thwacks Blaine in the face with his own pillow. The action has the drawback of waking Blaine up enough to land a strong swing to the side of Kurt’s head and soon they’re having an actual pillow fight. He doesn’t remember the last time he’s laughed so hard.

Shortly after they come to a truce, they comb their hair and go downstairs for breakfast. Kurt can smell his dad’s pancakes and bacon and Carole’s surely cooking up some eggs as well. When they enter the kitchen, Finn is spreading marmalade on toast and there’s a heaping stack of pancakes already set on the table. Breakfast is nearly as noisy as it is at Hogwarts; everyone is doing something, the telephone is ringing nonstop from relatives wanting to wish them a happy Christmas, and there are random bursts of Christmas carols between bites.

Blaine, Kurt quickly finds out, has a beautiful singing voice. While Finn isn’t a terrible tenor, Blaine has a smoothness that Kurt’s stepbrother will never accomplish. What’s more, when they attempt to harmonize on Joy to the World, Kurt and Blaine’s voices blend beautifully. Kurt can’t stop smiling.

After breakfast, they shower, change, and then sit in the den where Carole and Burt have stacked Christmas gifts high around the tree. While the tree lacks the live fairies that infest the Hogwarts Christmas trees, he’s pleased with the decorating Carole and his dad have done on their own.

Blaine gives Kurt his gift first, a small black box wrapped with a simple green ribbon. Inside are two polished black stones, both etched with simple runes for communication. Kurt picks up one stone and it glows warmly in his fingers. “Protean charms?”

“It took me two weeks to get the charm right. I figured this would be more discrete than owling each other and more reliable than using a middleman,” Blaine explains with a grin. “Or you can give one to your dad so you don’t have to waste parchment every week.”

“No,” Kurt says quickly. He offers Blaine the other stone and it glows when he wraps his hands around it. “I want you to have the other one.”

“Thanks,” Blaine replies softly.

Kurt delights in Blaine’s surprise at being given gifts. Though the gifts had been last minute purchases by Carole, Blaine receives books on Herbology and Quidditch and a wool cloak based on Kurt’s first design. Kurt’s family, likewise, thanks Blaine for the fudge he’d bought for them and the antique Christmas ornament that goes straight on the tree.

During their gift exchange, an owl taps on the window, delivering gifts from Blaine’s parents. Kurt’s stomach wind itself into knots as he watches Blaine’s face tighten. He opens the presents slowly, as if he’s unsure that he really wants to see what’s inside. He seems pleasantly surprised when he finds a pair of dragon hide boots and a pocket watch with a double-headed serpent etched on the front. Kurt wonders if it’s the Anderson family crest; the watch certainly looks like it could be a family heirloom.

Though the gifts seem to be better than Blaine had expected, his smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes for the rest of the morning. Kurt twists his fingers, unsure of what to do to make Blaine smile and laugh again. When they retreat to their bedrooms to put their new things away, Carole pulls Kurt aside and asks if there’s anything she can do. Kurt’s at a loss to what to tell her. He is still new at this friendship with Blaine and he doesn’t know anything about his home life.

She lets Kurt go to his room with a thoughtful look on her face.

As Kurt’s putting away his new sweaters and jeans, Blaine appears in the doorway. He’s fidgety and won’t look Kurt straight in the eye, but not out of avoidance. It’s almost as if his mind is somewhere else, lost among thoughts of whatever has been upsetting him.

“Your family’s really great, Kurt,” Blaine murmurs once Kurt has beckoned him in. “You’re very lucky to have them.”

Kurt sits at his vanity while Blaine perches at the end of Kurt’s bed, legs crossed at the ankles and practically folded in on himself as he picks at a thread in his sock. He considers Blaine for a moment, letting himself soak Blaine in – his soft jumper, his tailored jeans, and most of all, his pitiful body language. There are no platitudes that Kurt can offer him now, not when he’s still uncertain of what’s going on, so he replies with a simple, honest, “I know.”

In an attempt to distract Blaine from whatever he’s thinking about, Kurt pulls out a few back issues of Vogue and they lounge on Kurt’s bed for an hour, just talking about whatever comes to mind. Their topics ebb and flow, and at one point Kurt puts on a record of old Christmas songs. The house is quiet as they relax, though Kurt can hear faint noises coming from the kitchen until Finn knocks on the door. He’s dressed up to go out and Kurt can see a warming charm ripple across his shoulders like a cloak.

“Burt just charmed it to snow over the garden! There’s enough there to make snowmen,” he tells them excitedly. He looks like an overgrown puppy in his yellow, wool pilot hat. “Let’s go!”

Blaine jumps up from his position on the bed, and Kurt notes that he, too, is just as easily excitable as Finn is. Perhaps the sorting hat chooses Hufflepuffs on how well they resemble cute, fluffy animals. “Really? We can do that here?”

Finn laughs and looks at him like he’s crazy. “Of course we can. It’s Christmas.”

Kurt watches them with amusement, but doesn’t move to change into warmer clothes. He hasn’t felt the need to play in snow since he was younger, so he’ll leave the fun to Finn and Blaine. No, he’s fine just curling up with his magazines and music while Finn and Blaine attempt to get frostbite by going outside in the freezing cold. He’s even practiced the perfect look to give them once they come inside again with blue lips and icicles hanging from their eyelashes.

As though he doesn’t notice Kurt’s reluctance, Blaine rushes from the room. Kurt can hear him pulling out clothes in the room across the hall, slamming his trunk around as he dresses. There’s a faint _clunk _followed by a string of muttered curses and Kurt winces in sympathy for whatever toe Blaine managed to stub in his haste. He watches as Finn walks back and forth past his bedroom door, talking to Blaine about snow men and snow forts and other snow games that Kurt really has no interest in.__

 _For a brief moment, Kurt sighs fondly, thinking of how nice it is that Finn gets along so well with Blaine. Then he laughs to himself, muttering that of _course_ Blaine and Finn get along; they share a dormitory. Being a Slytherin in a house teeming with Hufflepuffs and Gryffndors, Kurt’s the odd one out here. It’s strange, but Kurt finds that he feels more comfortable here at home with three Hufflepuffs than when he’s surrounded by fellow Slytherins._

Soon, the sounds of Blaine and Finn clomping down the stairs and out into the garden echo throughout the house. Kurt walks to his window and watches as they run through the snow that his father had made for them. Though the ground had been covered in a nice dusting of white already, the snow is now halfway up Blaine’s calves, providing a nice cushion for when Finn pushes him into a snow bank.

Kurt can hear Blaine’s cry of indignation from where he stands in his room and he laughs as Blaine tries to tackle Finn at the knees. Deciding that he can’t stand at the window all day watching the two in the garden below, Kurt retreats back to his bed to continue reading his magazines.

It isn’t long before there’s a loud _thwunk_ at his window. Kurt looks up to find a snowball pressed against the glass, falling slowly as the heat from the house melts it into water. From outside, the boys below shout his name and tell him to open his window. Not wanting to be hit in the face, Kurt cautiously opens the window and yells down, “What do you want?”

“Get down here! When I said ‘let’s go’, I meant you too,” Finn shouts up to him.

Blaine chimes in immediately, “Yeah, come on, Kurt. You’re missing out on all of the fun!”

“Sorry, boys,” Kurt says loftily. “I’d like to keep my toes and fingers where they are, thank you. Though you might enjoy freezing your bits off for some childhood nostalgia, I prefer it inside where it’s nice and warm.”

Finn and Blaine look at each other and though Kurt can see them conversing, he can’t hear what they’re saying. For some reason, the thought of Blaine and Finn talking privately makes Kurt very, very nervous. In a preemptive countermeasure against any and all snowballs that they might decide to throw at him, Kurt shuts his window and walks back towards his bed.

Minutes tick by but no barrage of snowballs hits the windows like Kurt expects. Instead, clomping footsteps break the calm, and Kurt turns just in time to see Blaine come running into his room, dripping wet with melting snow. He brushes his shoulders off and catches Kurt with a bright, almost manic smile, making him forget to scold Blaine for making his floor wet. Kurt can’t help but return it with a tentative smile, one that’s no less warm than the one Blaine is giving him. There’s just something about seeing Blaine smile that makes him want to smile as well.

Then Blaine breaks the moment with a quick, “You should think of putting some warm clothing on. Finn’s gathering some snow to dump on your head.”

“ _Excuse me_?” Kurt hisses. He gives his best bitch glare, one that’s stopped Finn in his tracks before, and one that will hopefully make Blaine think twice about letting him get covered in snow.

It doesn’t work, however, as Blaine just laughs, causing more snow to fall from his hat. “I think he’s put out that you won’t join us outside. I’m here to make sure you don’t lock him out or hide in the bathroom.”

Kurt grumbles, but resolutely doesn’t move to put on his warmest jumper or cloak. There’s no way Carole would let Finn through with a big pile of snow in his arms. Since he isn’t of age yet, Finn can’t use magic outside of Hogwarts, so the likeliness of him charming it inside is slim. “If you’re part of the plan, then why are you telling me this?”

“Because I’m a good guy,” Blaine says with a ridiculous grin. Though he tries to resist, Kurt laughs. The smile is so smarmy that Blaine looks like a complete git, a look that’s not good on _anyone_. “Okay, maybe I just want you to come outside with us.”

“Seriously? It’s just _snow_.”

Finn appears in the doorway, an arm full of snowballs already beginning to melt in the warmth of the house. “It may just be snow, but it’s _fun_. You know, maybe Slytherin would win the House Cup once in a while if you learned how to have fun.”

“I suppose you have a choice,” Blaine points out. “Get dressed and play in the snow or don’t get dressed and play in the snow.”

“Ugh, that’s not much of a choice,” groans Kurt. “Fine, I’ll come outside and build a snowman but _that’s it_. If you throw a snowball at me, I’ll hex you both so hard you’ll be cross-eyed for a month.”

Blaine and Finn bump fists and leave the room, hurrying downstairs to continue their snow battle.

Finding warm clothing isn’t difficult for Kurt. He has a love for wool peacoats and scarves, and his boots are all charmed to withstand wet weather, so he dresses quickly and goes downstairs before the boys change their mind and pelt him with snowballs. Before he walks out the back door and into the garden, Carole points her wand at him from where she stands at the kitchen counter and murmurs a Warming Charm. It settles around Kurt like a blanket, keeping the chill from his bones when the cold air hits him all at once as soon as he steps outside.

The garden is covered in such a thick blanket of snow that Kurt’s uncertain that he really wants to step out into it. Playing in the snow is for first years, not sixth years. He can only imagine what Puck and Santana would say if they were to see him. Perhaps it’d be easier if he helped Carole and Dad with the cooking.

Kurt doesn’t get a choice, however, because Finn notices his hesitation right away. He scoops Kurt up like a sack of potatoes and throws him into a large, fluffy snow bank. It doesn’t hurt, the snow is soft and breaks his fall quite nicely, but it still leaves Kurt dazed. He shakes his head in an attempt to clear it and snaps, “Finn! What did I tell you?”

“Technically, you said not to throw snow at you,” Blaine reminds him. “You never said to not throw _you_ at snow.”

Finn laughs and as Kurt is glaring at them, Blaine shouts, “Geronimo!” and jumps into the snow bank besides Kurt. He laughs, joyous and infectious, and moves his arms about to push the snow around. “Come on, Kurt. Make a snow angel with me!”

Kurt rolls his eyes. “Don’t you think it’s a little ironic that a _Slytherin_ would be making a snow angel?” he asks, and stands from the snow bank.

“You sell yourself too short,” Blaine says. He lifts his arms for Kurt to pull and when he, too, steps away from the snow bank he leaves the perfect imprint of a snow angel. Kurt isn’t the least bit surprised; Blaine seems a bit too perfect for this world. “You’re certainly the nicest Slytherin I’ve met.”

“I’m the only Slytherin you’ve met,” corrects Kurt. “Unless one of my housemates has been seeing you on the side as well. Either way, I assure you that I’m just as mean and manipulative as the rest of them.”

Blaine doesn’t speak. Instead he presses his lips into a grim line and looks away from Kurt. On the other side of the garden, Finn has begun rolling the base for a snowman. It’s already nearly as tall as his kneecaps and he struggles to roll it around the yard as it keeps flattening out on the bottom, making it difficult to move. Blaine walks over and helps Finn give it an extra push before suggesting that they start on the torso.

They spend the next half hour rolling snowballs into a family of snow men. Burt comes out and helps them decorate with buckets transfigured into festive hats and pebbles into button eyes. They even manage to talk Carole into charming them to sing Christmas carols, though Kurt thinks that he and Blaine are far better singers than their frosty companions.

As their Warming Charms begin to fade and their teeth rattle with the cold, Carole calls them inside for cups of cocoa. Dinner will be ready soon, and they need to change out of their wet clothes before they can sit down to their meal. Kurt and Blaine follow Finn to the garage where they remove their cloaks and jumpers and hats and hang them up to dry.

Though knee-high boots are fashionable, and the particular pair that Kurt chose to wear are spelled to be water proof, they’re still difficult to remove when one is standing on slippery concrete. He nearly falls head first as he pulls one shoe off; the floor underneath his foot is so slick with melted snow that he loses all traction. Thankfully, Blaine catches him just in time, arms planted firmly on his shoulders to keep him pulled upright. With Blaine’s help, he’s able to get his boots off easily.

When Kurt looks up, Blaine is scant inches from his face. It’s the closest they’d ever been to each other and Kurt could count Blaine’s eyelashes if he wanted to (and he’s surprised to find that he _does_ want to). The tension between them is thick and charged and so unlike anything Kurt has ever experienced before that his breath catches with surprise. He lets out a breathy laugh and steps away, unable to make eye contact with Blaine any longer.

They return to their rooms where they change and comb their hair. As Kurt is applying lotion to his wind-chapped cheeks, Finn ducks his head inside and informs Kurt that dinner is ready.

Ever since his mother died, Kurt hasn’t had much experience with a traditional Christmas dinner. Normally, it would just be Kurt and his father watching Christmas programs on the telly as they eat left overs in their pyjamas. Though the kids at primary school, and then the other Slytherins at Hogwarts, had boasted about the amazing meal their mums made, Kurt never felt jealous or like he was left out on something special. He had his father and wanted for nothing.

Now they have Carole and Finn, and Blaine, too, and a big Christmas meal is expected, anticipated even. Finn had talked about Christmas dinners with his grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins with Kurt once. It sounded loud and busy, but nice. A large family dinner would certainly be a change, but Carole had decided that her first Christmas with her new husband and step-son would be spent in a more intimate setting.

Just because there are only five mouths instead of dozens, however, doesn’t mean Carole skimps out on courses. The dining table seems to buckle under the weight of food that Carole has prepared. Kurt’s father even boasts that he helped with the turkey and stuffing, even if Kurt is the only Hummel with any semblance of cooking skills outside of basic staples. Finn gives his mother a kiss on the cheek and compliments her on the spread and Kurt can’t help but echo an agreement; the food laid out for them looks and smells _amazing_.

They sit at the table and Kurt politely waits for them to finish saying grace before dishing himself a portion of potatoes, stuffing, and turkey. Soon the kitchen is full of the sounds of clinking pans and conversation. The food tastes even better than it looks, and Carole is flooded with compliments. She blushes and giggles like a school girl when Kurt’s dad leans over and kisses her in gratitude.

Conversation eventually flows from their current meal to anecdotes of past meals. Kurt regales them of his Christmas with Santana and how, after a disastrous attempt at cooking by themselves for the first time, they’d ended up ordering Chinese take-away instead.

“What’s Christmas like at your house, Blaine?” Carole asks. Kurt glances at her, wondering if this is her way of fishing for information about the Andersons. Like the Hufflepuff he expects her to be, she isn’t very subtle.

Blaine shrugs, though he doesn’t seem to be too upset over the question. “Father works for the Ministry so we always have large parties on Christmas Eve for all of his important contacts. The Malfoys and the Potters are nearly always there, so anyone who is invited RSVPs immediately just to get a chance to meet Harry Potter.”

“So you’ve met _the_ Harry Potter?” Finn asks, star-struck.

“Yeah, once or twice,” Blaine replies, though he doesn’t seem all that interested. “The parties were dead boring, though. I’d always excuse myself early just so I didn’t have to listen to any more stories about other people’s contributions to the war.”

“Do you get to visit family on Christmas?” Carole asks pleasantly. “Finn and I usually go to his grandmother’s to visit the family, but this year we decided to have a quiet holiday at home.”

Blaine nods and swallows thickly. Kurt opens his mouth to change the subject, give Blaine the distraction he needs instead of answering questions about his family. Before he can say anything, however, Blaine speaks. “My aunts and uncles come for brunch where we exchange gifts. Then I spend time with my older cousins until the house-elves serve dinner. Well, I did. Until-”

Kurt grabs his hand under the table and squeezes, earning a sad smile from Blaine. Blaine goes quiet after that, and Kurt reluctantly lets go of his hand. He rubs his palm on his pant leg, trying to ignore the feeling of emptiness once Blaine’s hand is gone.

As if sensing the profound tension emanating from Blaine, Finn and Burt launch into a discussion about the Magpies’ current season. It gives Kurt ample reason to ignore the conversation around him and watch Blaine closely. As the meal wears on, Kurt notices as Blaine begin to pull himself back together with a roll of his shoulders and a deep breath. He chases a few carrots around his plate as his eyebrows knit together before his expression smooths out. Soon, he’s jumping back into the conversation with gusto.

Kurt wonders how many times he’s done this; how many times he’s had to rebuild himself and pretends to be happy even when he’s not. He thinks that, perhaps, Blaine is so good at convincing others that he’s okay that he thinks that he can fool himself as well.

In the back of Kurt’s mind, he realizes that this is probably the start of trouble. Blaine makes him happy and warm and a lot more than the Slytherin he’s supposed to be. If he were anyone else it wouldn’t be a problem, but he’s a Slytherin who apparently has a fetish for Hufflepuffs like Santana said and fuck, he just wanted to get out of Hogwarts alive. Maybe if he ignores it, it’ll go away and he can get out of Hogwarts and then find a wonderful boy who will love him without house politics dictating his every move.

When Blaine looks at him, a content smile gracing his face, Kurt thinks it may just be too late to start ignoring it.

-

After dinner, they watch telly until bed. Burt introduces Blaine to Doctor Who, who finds the Christmas Special airing that night absolutely fascinating. This launches Kurt into an explanation of the entire series and Blaine tries his best to keep up. Kurt promises to catch him up over the week if he’d like while Finn comments about how he thinks Doctor Who is stupid. Kurt assures Blaine that he only thinks that because he finds time travel confusing.

Soon, though, it’s time for all of them to go to bed. The excitement of Christmas has drained all five of them and Kurt’s expecting Mercedes early in the morning so that they three of them can Floo to London for a bit of Boxing Day shopping. Though he’s tired, Kurt chooses to do his whole skin care routine to combat his afternoon outdoors.

Blaine comes into his room halfway through and sits at the foot of his bed with one of his new Herbology books. In his mirror, Kurt can see that Blaine isn’t really looking at his book. Instead, he’s turning his new fob watch over and over in his fingers, tracing the intricate crest with a delicate touch. Kurt wonders what he’s thinking and if he’ll ever know where Blaine goes when he gets quiet.

Once he’s finished with his routine, Kurt joins Blaine on the bed where they sit knee-to-knee. Blaine passes him the watch silently, as if he’d know Kurt would ask about it. It’s heavier than Kurt had expected, and much more intricate than his earlier glimpse had indicated. The dark lines of the double-headed serpent wrap around a much lighter etched A. Kurt runs a fingertip gently over the letter before passing it back to Blaine who sets it on the bed and ignores it.

Then, to Kurt’s surprise, Blaine holds his hands out for Kurt to take. Kurt cautiously reaches out and slips his hands into Blaine’s, watching Blaine’s face for any sign of something. What that something is, Kurt doesn’t know. His face betrays nothing, however, and the only movement in the room are Blaine’s hands moving over Kurt’s, threading their fingers together, squeezing, and then letting go so that he can press their palms together. There’s no rhyme or reason for it, but it’s almost comforting just to know that Blaine wants to, _needs_ to be near him.

They sit like that for several long moments and silence stretches between them. Wherever Blaine’s head is, it’s not in Kurt’s room. He suspects it’s south, closer to Anderson Manor. However, instead of feeling separated from Blaine because of this, Kurt feels closer than ever. Just holding his hand feels like such an intimate experience that Kurt flushes pink.

Kurt jumps when Blaine finally speaks, not expecting him to talk at all. In a quiet voice, he says, “My parents were informed that I was gay just before term began. Not my choice.”

“ _Oh_.”

“Yeah.” Blaine laughs and the sound is so self-deprecating that it almost physically hurts Kurt to hear it. He squeezes Blaine’s hand in an attempt to provide him comfort but Blaine smiles sadly. “I was already a disappointment to them and now I won’t be able to produce an heir without a surrogate. I’m a failure of a son.”

“You’re not a failure,” Kurt says. It’s true; Blaine is one of the smartest wizards in their year and though he isn’t a prefect, he’s rumored to be a candidate for Head Boy in their seventh year. In addition to that, he’s Seeker for the Hufflepuff team and he’s the president of Herbology Club, all things that Kurt thinks makes him pretty much the opposite of a failure.

“To them I am.” He shakes his head. “No, they preferred I didn’t come home this year so that they could at least pretend they missed me.”

Kurt shifts in his position and smiles encouragingly. “Well, I’m glad you’re here for Christmas. I think this has been the best Christmas yet, even if you and Finn forced me out in the cold.”

“We’ll teach you how to have fun yet, Kurt Hummel.” Blaine’s smile is genuine this time, and he laughs lightly. Then he stands and pulls Kurt up into a hug, a habit of Blaine’s that Kurt is finding he enjoys quite a bit. As they cling to each other, Blaine says, “Thank you for having me over, Kurt. It really means a lot.”

Though he’d ignored the sentiment the day before, Kurt squeezes tight in acknowledgement. There’s not much he can really say to that, really, but when Kurt steps away he gives Blaine his biggest smile. “I couldn’t let a friend be alone on Christmas.”

For a moment, Blaine’s face seems to freeze in shock. It’s as if he’s not really sure if Kurt had actually said what he did. Then, ever so slowly, he smiles and that is the best Christmas gift Kurt’s ever received.

They say their goodnights and Blaine walks to Kurt’s bedroom door. Just before he leaves, he gives Kurt one last look. “You surprise me, Kurt. I thought Slytherins were supposed to be heartless.”

Kurt shrugs. “Oh we are, but for some reason when I’m around you, it feels like having one wouldn’t be such a bad thing.”

“Happy Christmas, Kurt.”

“Happy Christmas, Blaine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a note: Chapters will be a bit slower coming out from now on. I've accidentally found myself rewriting most of this fic to make room for a more complex plot. I'd assumed that I'd just fix some weak scenes and such, but I've changed my mind on the progress of a few things so I need a lot of time to rewrite. If you could see the original chapters, you'd thank me. :P


	6. Chapter 6

The problem with having a friend over for the Christmas holidays, Kurt finds out, is that you never really want them to end. When that friend is _Blaine_ , the thought of returning to the castle and the humdrum of Hogwarts life is torturous. Unfortunately, their week is over sooner than they’d like it to be and Burt drives them in to London on the second of January to catch the Hogwarts Express.

Kurt hates the gnawing feeling he gets when he quickly parts from Finn and Blaine as soon as they walk into the station. He wants to join them on the train and gossip about Professor Binns and pass judgment on the amount of food Finn is willing to consume from the lunch trolley. Mostly, he wants to spend as much time as he can with Blaine before he has to return to the Slytherin dungeons and pretends that he doesn’t have a massive crush on the most socially unacceptable boy in all of Hogwarts.

Sometimes, he really wishes things were different.

This isn’t to say that Kurt regrets having Blaine over. Their week off was amazing and Kurt wouldn’t really trade it for anything. Kurt had shown Blaine his dad’s garage and they’d gotten coffee at the local café every day. They were even been able to spend New Year’s Eve night together, just the two of them and a marathon run of Doctor Who seasons three and four. Finn had gone off to a party at Quinn Fabray’s house and their parents were visiting Carole’s family.

On the way back to Kings Cross, Blaine couldn’t stop thanking Carole and his dad and Finn and Kurt himself for letting him stay. There was an uncomfortably emotional moment just before they’d pulled into London where Kurt thought Blaine was tearing up. Neither said anything about it, but Kurt heard a distinct sniffle when Carole hugged Blaine as tightly as she had her own son.

Still, Kurt wants to claw at his own skin as he looks for Santana’s compartment on the train. The green in his robes suddenly feel more like a rash than a symbol of prestige. For a fleeting second, he considers giving up everything for Blaine. It’d be so easy – just casually talk to Blaine in front of the whole school and Santana would never talk to him again.

But would it be worth it?

Kurt stumbles as the train departs the station. No, it wouldn’t be worth it. Though no Slytherin has ever dared break the no Hufflepuffs rule, he’s seen the kinds of things Santana is capable of for minor offenses. Nothing Dark Lord worthy, but there’s a reason why she’s one of the most feared students at Hogwarts. Weeks of jinxes, hexes, and sabotaged potions mixed with complete ostracization from Slytherin house itself. She’s a vindictive bitch and everyone knows it.

He’s never been on the receiving end of a Stinging Hex and he never wants to be.

Santana’s compartment is all the way at the end of the train. She’s already holding court with Puck and several other sixth year Slytherins. There’s a seat across from Santana waiting for him, just as he’d expected there to be.

“Kurt!” Santana greets as he shuts the door behind him. “How were your holidays?”

“Boring,” he drawls. He falls onto the seat next to Puck and crosses his leg at the knee. “I heard you were in Florida. Are Americans as tacky as I imagine them to be?”

“Mm,” she agrees and the way she’s leering at Kurt makes him instantly uneasy. He raises his eyebrow, just slightly, as if to test her. “From the rumors floating around, your holidays were anything but boring. Are you really fucking that Hufflepuff or does Jacob Ben Israel need to take a dip in the lake?”

He’s ready for this. He knows what he needs to say. Bringing Blaine to his house was never going to be kept quiet so he’d planned out exactly how he’d react if Santana had confronted him. He’s a Slytherin, which means he’s thought of every possible scenario.

With his heart hammering and his ears ringing with nerves, he squares his shoulders resolutely and smirks. “You mean Anderson? Never, ew,” Kurt says as he flicks his fingers dismissively. “No, he followed Finn home like a lost puppy or something. I stayed in my room reading Vogue all week. Listening to _Binns_ would be more exciting than talking to him. You know how that lot are.”

Santana cocks her head to the side as if she’s trying to pick apart his words. Then she smiles, and that’s almost as terrifying as if she’d hexed him square between the eyes. “Poor baby Hummel,” she simpered. “We should have a party for you as a celebration from your escape from those filthy Hufflepuffs. Booze and boys, what do you say?”

Santana’s parties are definitely more terrifying than a Stinging Hex.

“You don’t need to bother, Santana. I am happy just going back to Hogwarts.”

“I’m trying to get you laid here, Hummel. Do be grateful.” Santana’s tone at once turns patronizing. “Besides, I think I’m going to branch out to Gryffindors and we’ll make it, like, a theme party.I know I said they were _bougie_ last year but they’re totally in style now. After the Potter-Malfoy scandal every self-respecting Slytherin girl and boy wants their own Gryffindor hottie.”

Kurt grits his teeth and tries to smile. “Well, if you insist.”

Santana claps her hands as if they’re a gavel and flashes a smile around the compartment. “Now that that’s settled, let’s talk about Professor Pillsbury’s sham of a marriage. I heard….”

Kurt gladly tunes her out for the rest of the trip, instead choosing to read one of the Transfiguration textbooks he’d received as a Christmas present. The less he knows about what his teachers do in their spare time, the better.

-

Waking up the next morning is a chore. His huge four poster bed is too comfortable and the sound of the lake outside the windows is too soothing. Besides that, Kurt’s just not ready to get back to classes and studying and Transfiguration Society and tutoring.

Well, that’s a lie. He’ll enjoy tutoring because it’s with _Blaine_ , but they’ll be talking about Herbology and not Marion Cotillard or Patti LuPone. ¬At least Kurt is getting it now and Herbology isn’t as difficult as it once was. If Professor Longbottom assigns work this afternoon, they should be able to finish it in no time and then Kurt and Blaine will be free to just talk about whatever comes to mind.

He hasn’t seen Blaine in nearly twenty-four hours and that’s _weird_. Well, he had spotted Blaine sitting with Finn at the Hufflepuff table, but that had been at a distance and Blaine hadn’t even been looking at him and-

Okay, Kurt needed to stop acting so childish over this crush _today_.

Running a hand through his hair, Kurt looks at his side table to find the black stone he’d received from Blaine glowing faintly. He groans, grabs it off of the table, and hopes that none of his roommates had noticed it glowing. It’d be such a hassle to explain _why_ he had a rock for communicating with Blaine.

The sigil is glowing a faint red, which means that Blaine left a message. If Kurt grabs a shower now, he could potentially get enough privacy to listen to the message before his roommates wake up. It sounds like a great plan – so long as he can drag himself out of bed.

It takes several minutes but he manages to get into the bathroom just as Puck begins to stir. He picks the furthest stall from the door and turns the water on at full blast, the noise of the spray drowning out all of the noise coming from the stone.

“ _Hey, I hope you slept well last night! Professor Longbottom just came ‘round and says he wants to meet with us after class this afternoon. Don’t know what it’s about, but he seemed chipper enough. Well, that’s it. I’ll see you in Herbology._ ”


Kurt considers Blaine’s words as he washes his face. Professor Longbottom wants to see him? He’d been doing remarkably well since Blaine had begun tutoring him and Professor Longbottom had given him enough praise to make it at least seem like he was doing well. Did he flub his last exam?

If his grades _are_ miserable, would that mean he’d be asked to leave NEWT Herbology? Blaine wouldn’t be able to tutor him anymore and Kurt would never be able to see him and oh, his stomach is getting tight with nausea. It’s stupid to feel this dependent on Blaine, but Blaine makes him feel like more than _just_ a Slytherin.

Sitting through class is going to be terrible.

-

Though he’s loath to admit it, Kurt’s glad that Herbology is his first class of the day on Mondays. It used to be because he got it over with sooner, like ripping off a plaster, and then it was because he was able to see Blaine first thing in the morning. Right now, however, he doesn’t think he’d be able to handle the wait if he had to sit through four other classes to find out what Professor Longbottom wants from them. Hopefully it isn’t too harsh.

Kurt isn’t the type of person who gets antsy. He likes to be in control of his body, though sometimes he’ll twirl his wand if he’s a little too hyper. Blaine, on the other hand, is twitchy enough for the both of them. It starts as a slight shift in his seat, and then Kurt can hear the rhythmic tapping of his wand against the table. By the time half the class is over, Blaine’s rocking his chair and hitting it against the desk behind him – which just so happens to be the desk that Kurt’s sat in since the end of September.

It doesn’t take long for Kurt’s patience to snap. He reaches forward and flicks Blaine’s ear, delighting when the skin reddens immediately. Blaine’s chair rocks forward and makes a sharp _thunk_ as the front two legs hit the floor. None of the other students pay him any attention, though Professor Longbottom does pause for a second before continuing his lecture.

Blaine looks at him with a playful glare and Kurt smirks right back until Blaine turns around and starts penning more notes on the prevention of cannibalism in carnivorous plants. Kurt’s almost disappointed when Blaine doesn’t start fidgeting again.

The rest of the class is uneventful. Even the potential excitement of cannibalistic plants is drowned out by Kurt’s worry over whatever it is that Professor Longbottom might want to talk with them about. As he watches the minute hand slowly make its way around the clock at the front of the room, Kurt’s imagination churns out worse and worse scenarios. Maybe they want to kick him out of Hogwarts; maybe the tutoring was a social experiment and he failed; maybe it was all a practical joke and Blaine and Professor Longbottom are just going to laugh at him. At least they’d have the decency to laugh at him in private.

By the time the bell signals for the end of class and the other students shuffle off to Potions or Transfiguration, Kurt’s silently reminding himself to breathe. Once the last Ravenclaw is out the door, Blaine turns to him and claps at hand on his shoulder. He smiles warmly as if he knows exactly how to calm Kurt down.

“Relax, Kurt,” he says softly as Professor Longbottom approaches. “I doubt it’s bad.”

Professor Longbottom drops a piece of parchment on Kurt’s desk. At the top is a large red ‘O’ for outstanding and the rest is a progress report depicting Kurt’s rising grade over the previous term. Kurt can feel himself flushing with excitement.

“I’m impressed,” the professor says happily. “Kurt, your improvement is just astounding and I dare to think that you might even enjoy the subject now.”

“I wouldn’t go that far, Professor,” Kurt says, but he can’t help but match Professor Longbottom’s grin.

The professor turns to Blaine. “Because you did so well last term, I’d like you to tutor some first and second years now that Kurt no longer needs help. I hope that won’t be too much difficulty.”

“Of course, professor – wait,” Blaine says, face falling instantly. “I’ll no longer be working with Kurt?”

“I don’t see why you’d have to. He’s doing well both enough to continue his studies on his own. Will that be a problem?”

Kurt watches as Blaine bite his lip and glance at him. He looks away, unable to meet Blaine’s eyes. It’s worse than he’d thought. Without these tutorials, Kurt will never get to see Blaine. He won’t be able to lie and tell Santana that Professor Longbottom is forcing him to continue tutoring. Maybe if he starts slacking off again—

No. There’s no way out of this. He’s never going to see Blaine again.

“No problem, Professor,” Blaine replies softly. “May Kurt and I use the greenroom to speak privately?”

Professor Longbottom smiles down at them. “Of course. Be sure to shut the door when you leave. If your professors have any issues at all about missing the first few minutes of class, tell them to see me and I’ll be sure you’re excused.”

“Thank you, Professor,” they answer in unison, watching Longbottom leave the greenhouse.

Blaine’s arms are around Kurt’s shoulders instantly, hugging him as tightly as he can as he practically climbs over the desk between them. “Kurt, I promise this means nothing. We’ll figure something out.”

Kurt lifts his arm to push Blaine away but can’t bring himself to do it. Instead, he slides his arms around Blaine’s chest and hugs him back, letting himself enjoy the moment. Blaine smells fresh, like aloe and mint and a dozen other plants that Kurt doesn’t recognize. Kurt just takes it all in and memorizes it because this is it. This is the last time he’ll be able to do this because without her realizing it, Santana has won.

After several long moments, Blaine pulls back with a determined look on his face. “Kurt, don’t you dare. I know what you’re thinking. I’m not losing my best friend because we don’t have a reason to be seen together anymore. We have the Protean stones to talk and there are dozens of hidden places in this castle that no one will find us.”

“Best friend?”

Blaine grins. “The best I’ve ever had.”

-

Kurt’s still nursing his first cup of beer by the time Santana pulls her second Gryffindor seventh year onto the dance floor. The first one couldn’t keep up with her and managed to step on her toes half-way through the song. Santana had pushed him away in disgust and then turned her sultry smile onto his blonde friend.

The party isn’t bad, though Kurt would still rather curl up in the Slytherin common room with the latest issue of Italian Vogue. The fact that he had a hand in the decorating probably helps. If it had been up to Santana and Puck, they would have had it in the common room and added enough red to make it look like Christmas had overstayed its welcome. Their party would have been a bust as soon as they’d realized that they couldn’t just invite the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws into Slytherin anyway, and while it would have gotten Kurt out of attending, he would still have had to listen to Santana bemoan a wasted Saturday night.

So Kurt had offered to take on duties of setting up a room close enough to the Slytherin common room that if a teacher was coming, they could all rush back to the dormitories and leave the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws to get caught. Showing uncharacteristic generosity, Santana had pulled a few favors and managed to set up an alarm system of ghosts and portraits that would keep watch for patrolling teachers. She has all of the prefects under her thumb, of course, and Kurt is loath to dwell on what she’d bribed them with. With Madame Sylvester living in the professor’s apartments instead of near the potions classrooms, the labyrinthine dungeons are largely uninhabited and full of empty rooms begging to be transfigured to Kurt’s whims.

With only two weeks to turn a dank, cold dungeon into a venue for Santana’s party, Kurt was proud to say he’d outdone himself. The walls and floors glittered silver and the wall hangings were such a deep red that the room seemed to be on fire. Even the party lights he had transfigured from tea kettles were red, bathing the dance floor in blood-red light. Kurt had even sent out specific wardrobe instructions to those who had been invited: wear red or else it would throw off his entire scheme.

The drawback of his planning had been that it was difficult to see Blaine at all during those two weeks. Even with the communication stones, there had been little time or privacy to just talk about their days. Saying hello in private is such a hassle, Kurt is about ready to give up on trying. Blaine was wonderful, but Kurt wasn’t used to the sort of symbiotic dependency that came with their friendship. Even his friendship with Mercedes is more casual than his friendship with Blaine has become. It scares him a little. It shouldn’t be too hard to just let him go. After all, he’d spent five years at Hogwarts without him.

Kurt takes a long sip of his beer, intent on forgetting about Blaine for a while. Thinking about the way Blaine’s been able to affect him when no other boy in Hogwarts has makes his head and heart hurt. It would be just like karma to make the perfect boy fall in his lap and then tell him they couldn’t even be friends. Shakespeare must be laughing in his grave.

The thumping bass of the song Puck had put onto Kurt’s record player makes the glass chandelier above the dance floor shake. Kurt leans back on his chair and considers if a second sticking charm wouldn’t go amiss there; he’d hate to have to explain it to the professors if anything crashed to the ground and sent students to the hospital wing.

Kurt’s just about to pull his wand out of his pocket when someone catches his eyes. Mercedes waves, silver arm bangles glinting in the low mood lighting that Santana had insisted on. He grins and stands so that he can walk over to say hello. His step falters and he nearly trips when he sees Blaine follow her through the door.

His first instinct is joy but that is quickly squashed by an overwhelming sense of dread. Kurt’s eyes dart toward the dance floor but Santana is nowhere to be seen. If he’s lucky Santana will have taken Gryffindor Hottie #2 to the adjoining empty yet tastefully decorated supply cupboard to do only Merlin knows what. Kurt doesn’t dare think about what she could be up to, just knows that she’s nowhere in sight and Mercedes is walking his way with Blaine on her arm.

Much to Kurt’s dismay, Blaine looks sinfully good as the red party lights play along the planes of his face. Once he spots Kurt he breaks out into a boyish grin and waves a little. Kurt bites his lip as Blaine turns to Mercedes, kisses her cheek, and, curiously, leaves her at the edge of the dance floor.

Kurt doesn’t watch where Blaine goes. The room is full of Slytherins, and Santana’s sycophants would be more than happy to kick Kurt off of his throne as her favorite. Instead, he meets Mercedes at the open bar in the back and pours himself another drink – this time something a little stronger than cauldron cleaner because he knows he’s going to need it.

“You’re welcome,” Mercedes says, voice light and sing-songy as she sits on a bar stool.

“Yes, when Santana is digging my grave I shall be sure to send you a fruit basket in thanks,” Kurt replies sourly as he pours a shot of Ogden’s finest. Tipping it back and coughing away the burn afterwards, he decides that telling Mercedes about his crush was the worst idea he’s ever had – well, right after having a crush on a Hufflepuff in the first place. With a voice strained from the shot, he asks, “Drink?”

“Mai Tai,” she says sweetly. Kurt mixes the drink while glancing at her pointedly. He at least deserves to know why. “The invite _did_ say that I could bring a friend. Blaine and I are friends now; I made sure of it yesterday. We had a nice dinner while you were running around the dungeon like a kneazle with it’s head cut off. It was pleasant. He’s sweet. We talked about you! And then I told him that he just had to come see your skills for himself. He was _really_ excited to see you.”

“Don’t you think throwing him into the viper’s den is a bit stupid?”

Mercedes shrugs. “He’s not wearing his uniform, no one will even realize he’s not a Gryffindor. That’s what I told him at least. Blaine said he’s going to hang with Mike and Tina until everyone’s too drunk to notice and then he’s going to come find me.”

“And I’m assuming you will be with me which will provide he and I reason to hang out,” he states with a roll of his eyes. Mercedes flashes him her brightest smile and pats his hand. “Mercedes, I love you but your Gryffindor foolishness is going to get me killed.”

“Gryffindor courage, Kurt,” she says around the straw in her mouth. “Everything will be fine.”

Everything _is_ fine much to Kurt’s immense relief. Mercedes pulls him onto the dance floor and he does his best to not search for Blaine in the crowd between songs. Though the party is as rowdy as Santana’s parties can be, there are no fights for him to break up.

Santana seems pleased with her string of Gryffindor boy toys. She practically has them lining up on the dance floor for her, which isn’t a difficult task but is still nonetheless impressive. There’s general excitement among the party-goers and while Kurt would normally be worried about a friend’s reputation, he doesn’t know if he could ever call Santana a friend.

Curiously, each boy says the same thing when they leave her den of sin: it was the best sex they’ve ever had. Kurt briefly considers just how much sex they’re having if they’re able to mark Santana as the greatest lover in all of Hogwarts. He shakes his head to rid him of that ghastly mental image and drinks the rest of his beer.

Santana’s distraction doesn’t last the whole night however. About an hour after Mercedes had pulled him onto the dance floor, she finds them gossiping at a table under a Silencing Charm so that they may be able to talk without having to shout. She doesn’t stumble as she walks but there’s a sway to her hips that hadn’t been there three drinks ago. The tall, blonde Gryffindor at Santana’s heels seems to be reasonably suspicious if the worried look at where she’s grasped his wrist is any indication. Kurt thinks the boy must have a lot of bravado.

“Hey! Unicorn-bait!” Kurt forces himself not to snap at Santana’s greeting. She thinks that the pet-name is hilarious; Kurt just finds it humiliating. Santana sidles up to their table and pushes the Gryffindor towards Kurt. “I brought you a present. His name is Jeff, he’s a Gryffindor Beater, and he doesn’t like “lady parts”.”

Kurt watches warily as Santana uses her fingers to accentuate the scare quotes and then glances at Jeff, who seems pleasant enough though not all that bright. He is, after all, following Santana around and _smiling_ about it. “I’m not so sure –“

Santana sneers at him. “I’m trying to get you laid here, Hummel. Do be grateful.”

With that she spins on her heel much more gracefully than anyone with that much drink in them has any right to be and leaves them. There’s an awkward moment where the three of them sit in silence, watching Santana sashay away before looking at each other. Kurt hopes that Jeff doesn’t expect him to make small talk. Even if he weren’t hung up on Blaine, the chivalrous and slightly oblivious brand of boy that comes out of Gryffindor isn’t his type.

Jeff coughs and smiles apologetically. “So this is a little weird but I asked Santana to introduce us. I’m sorry if I’m being too forward.”

Kurt runs his finger around the lip of his glass. Though he wants to tell the boy that there’s someone else, the reality is that there isn’t. Blaine’s never shown him any interest past friendship and even if he had, it’s not like Kurt could act on it. A secret relationship wouldn’t work. Jeff, though? They could hold hands between classes and go on dates during Hogsmeade weekends and Santana would be absolutely thrilled.

“Is that so?” he asks coyly. Mercedes chokes on her drink, prompting Kurt to kick her lightly when she opens her mouth to speak. He looks up at Jeff beneath his lashes. “Why in Merlin’s name would you want to meet me?”

If the ambient light allowed it, Kurt’s sure he’d be able to see Jeff blush. As it is, he laughs bashfully and looks at his feet. “I know we’ve never spoken before but I’ve heard a lot about you. I’ve seen you in the corridors and stuff and I think you’re the best looking guy in school.”

Kurt smiles at Jeff and lets the compliment sink in. Though he doesn’t have the conventional looks like Puck or Blaine, he does turn a few heads at Hogwarts from boys and girls alike. Sometimes it’s nice to feel objectively desired, but no one has approached him before. It used to bother him, watching his friends pair up over and over again while he studied his Transfiguration textbooks and Vogue magazines.

Half-way through fifth year, Kurt realized that he didn’t need a boyfriend. He had his future to look forward to. Kurt could wait until he was out of Hogwarts if it meant finding someone who’d love him for who he was.

Jeff tells him a joke and Kurt laughs even though it’s merely amusing. Though he seems like the perfect guy, Kurt just isn’t interested in perfect. He wants someone who will challenge him like Blaine does.

Kurt wants Blaine.

“I apologize if Santana promised you anything by meeting me,” Kurt tells him. He feels instantly guilty and horrible because Jeff’s a boy who is interested in him and Kurt’s pushing him away for someone who likely doesn’t feel the same. “You seem to be a nice guy but-“

“But you aren’t interested in a boyfriend,” Jeff finishes with a sad smile. “You can’t blame a guy for trying. It was nice meeting you, though.”

“Likewise,” Kurt murmurs as he watches as Jeff walks back into the crowd. Blaine suddenly appears out of the throng and Jeff stops to chat. They speak briefly with their heads bowed close together, completely unaware of the dancers around them.

When Blaine looks up suddenly, straight into Kurt’s eyes as if he’d known he’d been watching the entire time, Kurt’s heart hammers in his chest. These new reactions Blaine brings out in him are frustrating and embarrassing; he feels slightly off-kilter and out of control. There are times when Kurt thinks that Blaine _has_ to know what he does to Kurt when he smiles or laughs or brushes his shoulder, especially when Kurt blushes or stammers nervously back at him. Blaine can’t be that oblivious, can he? Even Mercedes and Tina had picked up on Kurt’s crush during their brief shopping trip in London on Boxing Day. Perhaps Blaine’s just being nice about it.

Blaine approaches the table almost immediately after he waves goodbye to Jeff. Kurt doesn’t see where Jeff goes when Blaine steps through their Silencing Charm and sits across from them. When Blaine smiles at him, he can barely even remember Jeff at all.

“Having fun?” Kurt asks as he conjures a third glass and summons a bottle of beer from the bar.

“You are an amazing decorator, Kurt,” Blaine replies after he thanks Kurt for the drink. “If you can’t get that apprenticeship at Twilfit and Tattings after Hogwarts, you could open up your own event planning business and have vaults bursting with gold.”

Kurt blushes from the compliment. He’s considered doing just that, of course, but it’s more of a hobby than anything he’d like as a career. Fashion is his true love, even if Hogwarts provides very little in the way of teaching him everything he needs to know. He opens his mouth to say just that but Mercedes beats him to it.

“Have you seen the designs he makes?” she asks, leaning toward Blaine conspiratorially. “Our boy here’s going to be the biggest name in fashion for both the Wizarding and Muggle worlds. He’s researching a waterproofing charm that will rival Impervius for a line of cloaks he’s created.”

Blaine glances at him excitedly. “I knew Kurt was interested in fashion but I had no idea that he designed it himself. He’s never shown me any of his work.”

Clearing his throat, Kurt quietly corrects him. While normally he’d preen at the compliments, this is neither the time nor place for it. The alcohol he’s consumed over the past hour is making him feel more vulnerable than gracious. “Your cloak, the one I gave you for Christmas. That’s one of my finished designs. I haven’t perfected the waterproofing charm so it’s just a simple permanent Impervius woven into the fibers, but it’s been dyed with a stain-resistant potion of my own recipe.”

Mercedes lets out a short, sharp bark of a laugh. He hadn’t told her that he’d given the cloak to Blaine and now she’ll needle him about it when they’re alone. The awed expression Blaine is giving him causes Kurt to shift uncomfortably in his seat and push away his glass of beer.

“Kurt,” Blaine whispers and trails off. His mouth moves slightly, as if he’s working out what he wants to say and letting the words test themselves on his lips. “ _Thank you_.”

Kurt’s just about to wave off of Blaine’s thanks – he’d heard it enough in December as it was – when Mercedes pokes his shoulder.

“Remember when I said that nothing bad would happen?” she asks. The delicate tone of her voice worries him. “Well, I was wrong.”

“ _Anderson!_ ”

Fear freezes Kurt’s blood. Santana stalks up to their table once more, looking angrier than Kurt has ever seen her. Her hair is in disarray, as if she’d be in the middle of something before searching for them, and her face is so flushed that Kurt can see the color despite the dim lighting. The crowd parts around her, and when one tiny Ravenclaw girl doesn’t get away quick enough, Santana pushes her into the arms of a startled Gryffindor. Though there are plenty of people who are well aware that Santana’s in a rampage, none of them seem inclined to watch the proceedings. Thank Merlin for small miracles.

“Hummel, what is going on here?” she hisses. Distantly, Kurt realizes that likening the party to a den of vipers is more than appropriate. He wouldn’t be surprised if Santana’s bite is venomous, but he isn’t willing to find out.

Before Kurt can open his mouth to make excuses, Blaine twists around and says with a voice so cool that he nearly shivers at it, “Good evening, Santana. _Wonderful_ party.”

Blaine’s expression seems pleasant enough, but there’s a sharp edge to his voice that belies something else entirely. There’s a familiarity in the way Blaine’s looking at her, and when Kurt turns back to Santana, she gives him a look so scathing that Kurt can’t remember seeing it on her before. It’s odd, because Kurt doesn’t recall seeing them interact before either.

This, however, is anything but unfamiliar. Kurt watches Santana glare down at Blaine and Blaine smirk right back up at her as if they’re having a private conversation. With a start, he realizes that he doesn’t know much about Blaine at all – or Santana either for that matter. No matter how much Kurt chips away at Blaine’s surface, he’s still only seen glimpses of his life while they both know nearly all there is to know about Kurt. It’s completely unfair.

“Santana,” Mercedes says gently as she reaches out and takes Blaine’s hand. “Blaine’s my date. You said plus one, he’s my plus one.”

 _Dead wizard god._ Save them from her stupid Gryffindor nobility.

“I didn’t mean Hufflepuffs,” Santana snaps.

Kurt bites his lip. “Actually your invitations didn’t say no Hufflepuffs. I wrote it just as you dictated.”

Santana looks a second away from stomping her foot and throwing a tantrum. Perhaps the bar behind him will make a good barricade for when she inevitably starts jinxing everything in sight. As it is, she gives Mercedes a glare that has caused Puck to kiss her stilettos and Kurt himself to avoid the Slytherin common room for days. “Most people aren’t stupid enough that I need to specify the rules.”

“Santana, your mother would be appalled at your manners,” Blaine chides. “If you didn’t want me here, you could have just asked.”

“Leave my mother out of this, House elf.”

Having enough of Santana’s petulance and Blaine’s snark, Kurt stands and hauls Blaine out of his seat with a firm grip on his elbow. “I think I’ll just escort Anderson here out, okay? Go back to doing whatever you were doing, Santana.”

Mercedes snorts unattractively. “I think you mean _whoever_ she’s doing.”

“Mercedes,” Kurt warns quietly, his voice dangerously low. He looks back at Santana, who’s looking at him expectantly with her arms crossed. “Santana, I hope the rest of your evening isn’t ruined. I’ll head back to Slytherin after I’ve escorted Anderson from the dungeons.”

Santana huffs unpleasantly and tosses her hair over her shoulder. “Anderson, if I see your face in these dungeons ever again I will not hesitate to hex it off.”

“That’ll be a problem, won’t it? I’m sure Madam Sylvester will love to hear why I’ve shown up to NEWT potions with no face,” Blaine says. “Be sure to pin a note to my robes saying you were the cause, will you? I won’t be able to tell her who to expel without a mouth.”

“All right, that’s enough,” Kurt says as he tugs Blaine toward the door. It’s easier said than done seeing as he’s had a few drinks and Blaine is holding his ground. Santana takes a threatening step forward, causing Mercedes to jump up from her seat in case she needs to keep her back. Kurt grabs Blaine’s other shoulder and tugs hard as he hisses, “ _Let’s go._ ”

Once Kurt gets him moving, Blaine walks out of the dungeon party of his own accord. The thumping bass of the song that Puck has on the turn table can be felt in the soles of their feet even as they begin ascending the stairs up the Great Hall. They pass one patrolling ghost on their way out and nod stiffly at her as they march onward.

Kurt isn’t sure if he should be angry or concerned about Blaine’s sudden personality transplant. Mostly, he’s curious. He hasn’t seen Blaine that agitated since that day in the green houses in October. It isn’t the type of behavior he’d expect from a Hufflepuff; generally they were calm and non-confrontational, and yet Blaine was clearly goading Santana to get a rise out of her.

He has a million questions that he wants answered but he can’t ask them in the dungeons. Kurt often wonders if Santana has Extendable Ears installed in the cobwebbed nooks and crannies so that she can spy on every Slytherin who passes through the stone corridors. She already has a contingent of ghosts and portraits, so more surveillance to keep a watchful eye on her domain wouldn’t surprise Kurt in the least.

The likelihood of Santana following them into Hufflepuff territory, however, is much slimmer. They just need to cross the Entrance Hall to the stairs leading to the Hufflepuff basement and Kurt can interrogate Blaine then.

The castle is dark and silent as they quietly make their way through the Entrance Hall. The heavy moon outside casts long beams of light through the giant windows next to the doors. Each time they step into the lights, Kurt feels over exposed and like every person within the castle, whether they are awake or not, is staring at him. His spine tingles with shivers.

“What the hell was that?” Kurt hisses once they’ve descended the stairs to the basement.

Blaine sighs as he leans against one wall and slides down it. “There’s not much to say, really.”

“When were you going to tell me you and Santana were friends?” Kurt asks harshly.

“We’re not,” Blaine replies quickly, brows furrowing. After a moment he sighs and stares at a point in the wall just to the left of Kurt’s feet. Whatever anger he’d had before has been reeled in-- just as Kurt had expected it to be. Blaine fiddles with the cuffs of his sleeves before continuing. “We were – back before Hogwarts and house rivalries and all that rubbish. We grew up together. Went to the same garden parties, had the same maths tutor, had sleepovers for our birthdays. Then I was sorted Hufflepuff and she refused to be my friend any longer. The whole Slytherin prejudice thing. You could say it’s a sore spot.”

Kurt feels the tension drain from his body, leaving him feeling heavy and suddenly sad. He sits next to Blaine, shoulder to shoulder and knee to knee. The new revelation has Kurt’s head spinning and he realizes now that there’s a reason why Blaine doesn’t often talk to Kurt about his family or growing up. With a family who wishes you were someone else, with a best friend who rejects you for something you can’t help but be, why would he want to talk about it?

If Slytherins don’t let people get close in order to protect themselves, Kurt’s realizing that Hufflepuffs, and Blaine in particular, seem to want to protect their friends from hurting even if it means that they bottle things up. There’s an odd mirror to the two houses, slightly distorted and skewed but still so similar that it makes Kurt’s heart hurt. He clenches his fists. Kurt had never questioned the rivalry between the houses before, just ignored it when possible and acted when how he was expected to when he couldn’t. Now he wishes more than anything to be able to fix it.

He knows he can’t, though. Kurt doesn’t even know how it started, or why. All he knows is that the few who had stayed in Slytherin immediately following the war had been the ones to bring about this change. Academic excellence, servicing the community, and networking with worthy friends in other houses were all meant to help turn the Wizarding world’s prejudice against Slytherin into desire. The entire house of Hufflepuff had been immediately found unworthy for no reason other than the Sorting Hat saying that they were unwanted by the other houses.

Perhaps through Slytherin’s sheer desperation for the glory that the other houses had, they had transformed simple disregard into outright disgust. Kurt’s stomach rolls unpleasantly as he thinks about how fast opinions could change in thirteen years. In another thirteen year’s time would Ravenclaw and Gryffindor feel the same? Kurt knows that the other houses don’t think highly of Hufflepuff as a whole already; would they also find Hufflepuff beneath them?

Resigned, Kurt’s at a loss to what to say. Blaine’s former friendship with Santana is in the past now and it isn’t within Kurt’s right to fix things, no matter how much he might want to if just to see Blaine happier. So he comes up with the only platitude he can think of: “I’m so sorry.”

“So am I,” mumbles Blaine. He drops his head on Kurt’s shoulder and pulls his knees to his chest.

They sit like that for what feels like hours, as silent as suits of armor. Kurt doesn’t move a muscle, unsure of what to do with Blaine’s sudden closeness. He can smell the sweetly-scented potion he uses in his hair and the barest note of cologne underneath it. It’s almost too much to handle. Two weeks have passed since Kurt has been able to hang out with Blaine for longer than a few moments and he had expected that his crush would have disappeared into the platonic comfort of friendship.

With his heart beating so hard that Blaine must be able to hear it and skin tingling where Blaine is pressed tight up against him despite the many layers of clothing, Kurt’s feelings are anything but platonic. If he were to slide his hand off of his lap, Kurt could hold Blaine’s hand, press his fingers into the soft skin of Blaine’s knuckles. If he were to give in to his desire, would Blaine accept Kurt’s touch? They’d been close over that week in December, but this seems so much more different.

“Kurt,” Blaine whispers. His voice is so low and breathy that something warm stirs deep within Kurt and sends an electrified tingle down his spine.

“Blaine?” he echoes as he turns his head. Blaine’s face is barely an inch from his and their noses nearly brush when Kurt moves. It’s startling to find Blaine invading his personal bubble but he doesn’t move away. He can see every bright fleck and ray in Blaine’s eyes, the colors muddied by the low light in the corridor. The sweet scent of whatever alcohol Blaine had been drinking at the party floods his nose and suddenly Kurt yearns to press his lips to Blaine’s and taste it, become punch-drunk from his mouth and tongue.

Blaine shifts, bringing himself even closer, but not close enough for Kurt’s liking. Should he be the one to make the first move? He’d assumed that his first kiss would be given to him, not the other way around. Kurt’s shocked to discover that he likes this more, taking what he wants instead of waiting for it to be handed to him. He lifts his hand to run his thumb over Blaine’s cheek like he’s seen in Muggle films--

“Someone’s coming,” Blaine says, stopping Kurt’s movements in an instant. Just above the rushing sound in his ears, he can hear the unsteady click of heels on flagstone. _Oh._

He jerks away from Blaine. If they’re caught out of their dorms, they’ll get into trouble. Kurt’s never had a detention before in all his years at Hogwarts and he isn’t about to start now. He looks down the corridor and spots a tapestry over an alcove. It’s the sort of place that students usually go for a snog in private but it’s also a good place to hide.

Kurt jumps to his feet and pulls Blaine down the hallway. They just slip themselves safely behind the tapestry, pressed closely together, when they hear the tip-tap of heels begin to draw closer. Kurt’s chest is pressed so tightly against Blaine’s that he can feel the other boy’s heart thunder against his ribs. He wraps his arms around Blaine’s shoulders and almost smiles when Blaine presses his hands against the small of his back. They wait.

“Hummel, I’d better not find you down here,” a familiar voice mutters. Santana’s voice is slurred, much more so than when Kurt had left her. As she walks passed, Kurt prays that he’s lucky enough that they won’t be found out. “Merlin, that party fuckin’ sucked. First B-Blaine, and then Sylvester shows up and everyone’s pissed that they’ve got detention. Not my fault I was entertainin’ when the alarm went off. Shoulda been payin’ attention to the portraits is what I told Puck but does he listen? Nooo….”

Kurt lets out the breath he didn’t known he was holding when Santana’s mutterings are no longer audible. Though she’s seemingly gone, Kurt knows to wait a few minutes to make sure she doesn’t return. Plus he has Blaine in his arms and while the setting isn’t ideal, he’s not likely to let the opportunity pass.

He briefly considers kissing Blaine now, but the moment’s been ruined. His nerves are shot and Blaine’s heart is still pounding against his chest. It’s time for them both to return to their dorms.

After checking to see that the coast is clear, Kurt steps out of Blaine’s embrace. He whispers, “I should go.”

“Probably,” Blaine replies. His voice is strained and Kurt wonders if maybe nearly being caught was a little too much. Perhaps they should back off so that Santana won’t—“Want to get lunch tomorrow?”

“What?” Kurt asks.

“I’ll tell you how to get into the kitchens. They keep a table there for anyone looking for a meal away from the Great Hall,” Blaine explains as he points his thumb over his shoulder. He clears his throat before continuing, “I’ve missed you these two weeks. It’s weird to not be able to chat with you whenever I want. We can spend lunch deciding how to make this work without Santana finding out.”

Kurt smiles more brightly than he has since returning to Hogwarts and agrees to meet Blaine at eleven. He nearly skips back to Slytherin with giddiness. When he returns to the common room, Puck’s sitting in front of the fire with a vial of anti-hangover potion.

“Where were you?” he asks. “You must be the only one who didn’t get busted by Sylvester.”

“Went for a walk,” Kurt replies. He drifts towards the boys dormitory and smiles at Puck. “Goodnight, Puck.”

He does not miss the confused look that Puck shoots at him, but he can’t find it in himself to worry about it. Despite not kissing Blaine tonight, Kurt has a sneaking suspicion that he’ll be doing it soon. Even though Santana had interrupted them, it had seemed like Blaine wanted Kurt to kiss him. They’re too close to be just friends and Blaine risked a lot just to see Kurt at the party. Surely that means _something_ and if Blaine’s willing to risk Santana’s anger to see Kurt then Kurt’s willing to do the same if it means being with Blaine.

Looking forward to lunch the next day, Kurt sleeps soundly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check out the fanart people have done for Seismic! [1](http://chambergambit.tumblr.com/post/9483399374/slytherin-kurt-from-pyroclasts-a-seismic-shift) [2](http://evarren.tumblr.com/post/9659118210/fanart-for-shaunas-hp-au-a-seismic-shift-in) and [3](http://onsunlightwings.tumblr.com/post/9846321035/eeeep-more-of-this-and-in-time-for-shaunas)


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